Clock ticking for Vietnam?s aging fleet

Most vessels in Vietnam?s shipping fleet have been rated as weak and obsolete in terms of both transport capacity and technology, according to the Vietnam Shipowners Association and the Government Decree 14/CP (1996) on shipping, which rates ships as unserviceable if they have served for more than 15 years.

Many Vietnamese ships have passed this age and several vessels have been detained at foreign ports for reasons of safety. However, experts say it will be difficult to rejuvenate the country?s shipping fleet. According to the Vietnam Register of Shipping (VIRES) statistics, as many as 85 Vietnamese ships operating on international routes are more than 25 years old, with 34 being between 30-40 years old. Meanwhile ships built domestically are still lacking in technical standards, and very few domestic shipping companies can buy foreign ships as they are too expensive.

In the first 10 months of 2005, 281 Vietnamese ships were inspected at foreign ports and 54 of them, or 19.2%, were detained. According to VIRES, Vietnam now lacks shipyards with adequate floating docks to repair ships of 5,000dwt and over while demand for repairing ships exceeds supply. This has caused the repairing of ships to be rushed, especially for ships more than 25 years old, and consequently many ships still had defects when leaving the ship repair yards because the repairs were not carried out thoroughly. Experts said this was one of the causes of maritime accidents in 2004 and 2005.