The Vietnam Maritime Administration has just reported to the Ministry of Transport on the development of the project “Improving the Capacity of domestic shipbuilding enterprises”.

The record high container shipbuilding orders 

The report signed by the Deputy Director of the Vietnam Maritime Administration Hoang Hong Giang said that, as of December 2022, the total number of Vietnam’s shipping fleet was 1,477 ships (a decrease of 17 ships compared to the previous year). 2021) with a total tonnage of about 11.6 million DWT and a total capacity of about 7 million GT.

Among them, there are 1015 transport fleets with a total tonnage of approximately 10.7 million deadweight tons and a total tonnage of approximately 6.4 million tons; The number of Bulk carriers is 709, accounting for 70.3%; 178 oil and chemical ships, accounting for 17.6%; 21 liquefied natural gas specialized ships, accounting for 2.1%; The container fleet consists of 43 ships, accounting for 4.3%; There are 58 passenger ships, accounting for 5.7% of the fleet.

According to the United Nations Organization for Trade and Development (UNCTAD), the Vietnamese fleet ranks third in the ASEAN region (after Singapore and Indonesia) and 27th in the world. The average age of Vietnam’s dedicated maritime fleet is 15.5 years, 5.4 years younger than the world’s ships.

The youngest average age group is passenger trains (7.9 years old), and the youngest is liquefied natural gas trains (23.6 years old); The container ship group is 17.7 years old, and the petrochemical ship group is 17.6 years old.

It is worth noting that Vietnam’s maritime fleet has shown a downward trend in terms of the total number of ships, but has increased the number of heavy ships

According to Mr. Giang, in 2020, due to the pandemic, there was almost no fluctuation in ship activity. But by 2021, with supply chain disruptions and shortages in ship supply, freight rates began to rise significantly, and operators began to increase orders for new ships. The delivery volume of new ships increased by 5.2%, reaching 60 million tons.

The largest increase in the number of newly built ships is for large-tonnage ships, with container ship orders increasing by 129%, reaching a historic high, mainly due to ship sizes of 12000 TEUs and above.

In particular, about 40% of newly built ships use Alternative fuel, which indicates that large ships and clean fuel ships are gradually replacing the old generation of ships in the future.

Mr. Giang said that in the next few years, the world trade fleet will grow in three scenarios: basically, by 2026, the growth rate will be 1.25%, with an annual growth of 955 ships. The low scenario is 0.75%, which is equivalent to an annual growth of 567 ships. By 2025, the positive growth rate will be 1.75%.

From the perspective of maritime transportation in Vietnam, the production of goods through seaports reached 724 million tons in 2022, an increase of 2.5% compared to 2021. From 2020 to the present, the volume of goods exported through seaports has slightly decreased (403 million tons in 2020 and 382.8 million tons in 2022).

The volume of container goods through seaports in general and the volume of import and export containers and domestic goods in particular through Vietnam’s seaports tend to increase gradually and stably in the period 2015 – 2022. 

In 2022, the volume of container cargo through seaports reached nearly 24,748 million TEUs, up 106.2 percent compared to 2015. Which, import and export container goods reached 16.6 million Teus in 2022, up 75.6% compared to 2015. The container goods Domestic market reached 8,136 million TEUs, an increase of 219.8% compared to 2015.

It is worth mentioning that the foreign fleet increasingly dominates the import and export cargo transportation market of Vietnam. The import-export transport market undertaken by Vietnam’s shipping fleet from 2016 to 2022 averages 6.8% per year. The rest, more than 90% of import and export goods are handled by foreign shipping lines.

Replacing the fleet is a top priority.

One of the key goals in the development plan of the Vietnamese maritime fleet approved by the Ministry of Transport is to double the share of the Vietnamese maritime fleet in the transportation of import and export goods at Vietnamese ports to 10% by 2026 and 20% by 2030.

The leaders of the Vietnamese Maritime Bureau stated that most Vietnamese shipowners are managing and operating ships built using old technology, which have high fuel consumption and maintenance costs, Large maintenance should be lower than the competitiveness of foreign shipowners and encounter many difficulties in conducting extensive business for the domestic market, import and export cargo transportation, and international business.

Therefore, the need to develop and replace the fleet is an urgent requirement for Vietnamese shipowners in the future stage.

According to statistical data from the Vietnamese Register, 82 shipyards have issued qualification certificates for ship construction, modification, and repair in accordance with Decree No. 111/2016, which stipulates the conditions for the operation, construction, modification, and repair of ships.

Among them, 21 facilities (8 belonging to SBIC and 1 belonging to SBIC’s overseas joint venture) are constructed, modified, and repaired for ships of 10000 deadweight tons or above.

Vietnam also has a new shipbuilding facility under Modern Vietnam Shipbuilding Co., Ltd., which can build many large modern ships, Dung Quat Shipbuilding Industry Co., Ltd. and Nosco Shipyard Co., Ltd. have large ship maintenance capabilities and have undergone extensive repairs in recent years at these facilities.

“SBIC’s shipbuilding facilities currently represent a small percentage of the total number of facilities certified by the Registry. With ships with a tonnage of 10,000 tons or more, SBIC accounts for nearly 50%,” Mr. Giang informed and affirmed that Vietnam’s shipbuilding and repair facilities are capable of building ships serving the needs of customers. domestic and export demand. The main facilities can still perform the assembly stages and the complexity is not high, while the main equipment and machinery still have to be imported from abroad.

Recently, due to the impact of natural disasters and the global Covid-19 pandemic, the shipbuilding and shipping markets have not recovered, and new orders with foreign partners are not large.

With the domestic market, because the investment in this period is not effective, the domestic ship owners stopped or delayed the construction progress. 

In the context of the stagnation of the new building market, the repair volume of the units remained quite regular, the promotion of repair activities partly made up for the shortfall in revenue from new construction activities.

However, the scarcity of orders for both new construction and repair has significantly affected production and business results and employment funds of many units. SBIC continues to take effective solutions as directed to successfully implement the restructuring program. 

From here, leaders of the Vietnam Maritime Administration said that studying the project “Improving the Capacity of domestic shipbuilding enterprises” is necessary to implement the Strategy for sustainable development of Vietnam’s marine economy to 2030. vision to 2045, contributing to socio-economic development, taking advantage of available conditions of marine resources, labor, and development trends of the world shipbuilding industry.

Souce: baogiaothong.vn