Vietnam Lumbered with Old Ships

Vietnam's Ministry of Transport (MOT) propose law be amended to enable scrapping of some 22 Vietnam owned ships flying flags of convenience.

According to VietnamNet Bridge a recently released MOT report showed that there are many state-owned and private ships berthed in Vietnam, which cannot be made commercial use of any longer because they do meet maritime safety requirements.

The ministry believes that it would be better to demolish the ships and sell them, however, the country's current valid Environment Protection Law prohibits legal entities to import into Vietnam used transport vehicles for demolishment.

Some years ago, when the sea shipping industry was in its golden age, many Vietnamese ship owners decided to buy old ships at low prices which flew foreign flags (so as to dodge the Vietnamese laws which did not allow purchase of excessively old ships). 

The investors believed that they had made good deals then, because they would make some money with the old ships before selling them for scrap later. 



However, their plans were upset when the shipping market fell into a crisis, the ship owners did not get orders, while they could not demolish to sell the ships as it would violate the laws to demolish vessels in Vietnam, while it would be too costly to bring the ships abroad to demolish.


Source: VietnamNet Bridge