VietNamNet Bridge – Trillions of dong have been poured into shipbuilding projects in recent years. However, the projects have either never been completed, or never been put into use.
The VND3 billion dredger which has not been used.
Designed, produced, tested and put on mothballs – this has been the “life cycle” of many ships invented by Vietnamese talent in the past.
Three years ago, local newspapers all reported news about the successful development of a dredger made with “special technology”, a product of the cooperation between the Mechanical Engineering Institute and the Hanoi People’s Committee.
However, the high-tech dredger has been “laying low” next to a drain, on the campus of the Hanoi Water Drainage Company, waiting for its death certificate.
The dredger is now covered with green moss, while its equipment, which have been exposed to the sun and rain, is getting stained and rusty. The glass of the cabin is broken into pieces.
The VND3 billion dredger still has not been put into use since its birth. According to the Hanoi People’s Council, as appropriate agencies still have not yet fixed the estimates, the Hanoi Water Drainage Company, the user of the machine, still cannot make the cost estimations before putting the machine into use.
As the value of the machine has not yet been determined, the company still cannot calculate its total assets’ value and the asset depreciation.
In fact, the relevant agencies have made a lot of suggestions to put the dredger into operation. But as no perfect solution has been found, the dredger remains idle.
Do Thai Binh, a member of the HCM City Association of Marine Science and Technology, and of the Society of Naval Architects and Marine Engineers (SNAME), said Vietnam once built very modern ships to serve marine research, including the Bien Dong Ship, built in 1976, which became operational in 1982.
“The ship had the small engine capacity of 1,500 CV,” Binh said. “While similar ships built in Norway at the same time are still operating well, the one in Vietnam has been left idle for a long time”.
“I once heard about an incident in which a net was caught in the ship’s propellers. After that I saw it once more at an exhibition on Vietnam-China cooperation in fisheries. I have no new information about the ship since then,” he said.
Some days ago, state agencies admitted that Vietnam has a “fleet of old-aged ships” which cannot weigh anchor and steam off to sea.
In 2006, the Nam Trieu Shipbuilding Company received the Bach Dang Giang Ship at a price of VND155 billion, but it could not do anything to reactivate the ship.
Bach Dang Giang once belonged to the Vien Duong Transport Company Ltd, which bought 10 ships in 2006 and 2007 at $200 million. All of the ships were over 15 years old when purchased.
Since the ships were too old, they could not be registered in Vietnam. They have been flying with foreign flags (Panama, Tuvalu, Liberia) when joining the transport market.
Dat Viet