Foreign companies dominate warehousing market

The top three, Singapore’s Mapletree, global logistics real estate firm GLP’s subsidiary SEA Logistic Partners and BW Industrial, a joint venture between U.S. investment company Warburg Pincus and local developer Becamex IDC, accounted for nearly 1.79 million square meters, or 46%, of the leasable modern warehouse space, FiinGroup said in a recent report.

Mapletree has been expanding its warehouse portfolio aggressively with mega logistics hubs in Bac Ninh, Hung Yen and Binh Duong provinces, with each containing 12-24 warehouses, it said.

BW Industrial built 22 new warehouses in the northern and southern regions in 2020-22.

Domestic enterprises are also expanding but on a much smaller scale, with the three largest, ICDST, NPL Logistics and Gemadept, having 172,000, 126,000, and 114,000 square meters of space.

Driven by strong trade, manufacturing and retail, warehousing is the most attractive logistics segment, according to FiinGroup.

For the last four years the supply of modern warehouse space has been growing by 23% annually, reaching 3.9 million square meters in 2023, it said.

Another 25 warehouses are set to be completed before 2027, adding another 1.87 million square meters, it added.