VietNamNet Bridge – If deferring to current law, no business in Vietnam can satisfy the requirements for salvaging retired ships for scrap.

The Ministry of Transport (MOT) has sent an express dispatch to the Vietnam Maritime Bureau (Vinamarine), urgently requesting that the agency finish compiling the regulations on dismantling decommissioned ships and submit it to the ministry as soon as possible.

It turns out that up to now, Vietnam still lacks any such regulation, even though the maritime industry has been developing over decades.

Since 2007, when the Environment Protection Law took effect, the salvaging of foreign ships in Vietnam has been illegal. That’s because the law prohibits the import of any means of transport, including ships flying foreign flags, for scrap.

As for domestic means of transport, the law does allows old ships to be demolished, but stipulates that the process must be in accordance with the procedures of yards which can have conditions good enough to avoid the environment pollution. The law also stipulates that the salvaging plans must be examined by concerned agencies, and that businesses can only begin the procedure after being granted permission from the agencies.

However, the provisions only exist on paper. To date, there has been no legally sanctioned demolition yard for sea vessels set up anywhere in Vietnam.

To be sure, ship demolition and scrap trading are listed among the conditional business types here – that is, they are legal forms of business in Vietnam. But state management agencies have yet to set up the standards for ship scrapping work in particular, and, for that matter, vehicle demolition in general.

Consequently, many watercraft salvaging businesses have been set up, but without demolition yards, as they don’t know which standards they need to implement to build the yards. Observers point out that these demolition enterprises are indeed operating, but in an illicit manner.

Three months ago, MOT, at a loss for how to deal with tens of rusting old ships lying in Vietnamese territorial waters, put out a cry for help. Dai Doan Ket newspaper quoted a source from the HCM City Maritime Authorities as saying that 12 ships have been lying idle in the area for the last several years.

Meanwhile, Vinamarine estimated that the number of old Vietnamese ships, flying Vietnamese and foreign flags, and waiting to be demolished, has reached 100. The ships have a total capacity of over 1 million tons, or 14 percent of the total capacity of the Vietnamese fleet.

The number of dormant ships has increased in recent years, due primarily to an overabundance of shipping capacity resulting from the global economic crisis.

In principle, ships can only be demolished if the Environment Protection Law, which currently makes it illegal to demolish ships with foreign flags, is amended.

DDDN