Embattled shipbuilder bounces back

Near-bankrupt shipbuilder Vinashin has gradually bounced back after four months of restructuring, a report released yesterday said.

All of its businesses, including shipbuilding, sea transport and subsidiary industries, had been back on their right track, the report made by the Steering Committee for Restructuring the Viet Nam Shipbuilding Industry Group said.

Head of the committee, Permanent Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Sinh Hung said workers had got back to their jobs with a stable income and some of Vinashin’s member enterprises had started to develop again.

The transfer of some Vinashin’s former projects and businesses to Petro Vietnam and Vinalines had been completed and these projects had resumed production, he said.

All workers at Dung Quat shipbuilding factory were back to work. Soai Rap Industrial Zone in the Mekong Delta province of Tien Giang, which is 285ha in area, had been turned into a fully occupied oil and gas industry and services complex, the report said.

Twenty-three out of 26 vessels transferred to Vinalines were back in operation.

Song Hau and Ca Mau industrial zones and Hau Giang and Ca Mau shipbuilding factories had also shifted from building new ships to repairing them.

The State-owned Vinashin, established in 1996 to develop the country’s shipbuilding industry, had accumulated debts totalling VND86 trillion (US$4.3 billion) as of June last year, leading to an investigation and large-scale restructuring efforts.

When the restructure is completed in 2013, Vinashin would be an economic group including one big State-owned corporation, 19 member companies, one joint venture and 22 subsidiary companies.

It would own properties worth almost VND68,250 billion ($3.4 billion) and have a debt of more than VND53,000 billion ($2.65 billion).

Another 216 businesses of Vinashin would be sold, equitised, merged, dissolved or declared bankrupt to pay debts.

Much of the restructuring efforts would be made this year, said Hung.

Vinashin is expected to reach a turnover of nearly VND21,150 billion (more than $1 billion this year, double of last year’s figure). That includes a total export value of $352 million, up 127 per cent against last year.

But there are a lot of things to be done to make the goals, Hung said.

“Although the restructuring efforts have initially showed encouraging results, the road ahead remains challenging,” he said.

To achieve the goal of turning Vinashin into the leading group of Viet Nam’s shipbuilding industry and turning the country into a marine economy power by 2020, a master plan for the whole industry must be completed by the end of March, he said.

An investigation of the Vinashin debacle is expected to be made public early this year. The group’s near bankruptcy last year made almost 5,000 workers redundant and left the rest of its 70,000 employees unpaid last year. — VNS

Tags: Vietnam Shipbuilding industry, Vinashin