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VietNamNet Bridge – Though shipping fees have increased by 10 percent over
the previous year, shipping agents still cannot earn much money from shipping
services, while their profit mainly come from ship trading.
Shipping fee increases cannot help much
Forwarding companies have said the domestic shipping fee has increased by 10
percent in comparison with the last year, while it is expected to increase by
10-15 percent further in the high year-end season, though the volume of goods
will not increase significantly. According to Dang Tan Phong, Director of SCM
Vietnam, the volume goods going through the company has decreased by 5-8 percent
over the previous year. The shipping fee increases are considered “reasonable”,
because the crude oil price has climbed to over $80 per barrel in the world.
However, Phong said domestic shipping firms still cannot meet the demands in
service quality.
Experts say the current capacity of domestic shipping firms is sufficient to
meet the domestic demand while they do not have to compete with foreign firms.
In general, the shipping firms which exploit domestic routes have to exploit
short-distance routes to Thailand or Singapore to use up all of their capacity.
However, some shipping firms said that the big disadvantage for domestic
shipping firms is the inconsistency of the volumes of goods which depends on the
seasons and weather. Therefore, though the shipping fees are high at certain
times, they are not high enough to bring fat profits to shipping firms, and many
domestic shipping firms have fallen into difficulties.
According to representative from Vosco, the expenses on sea transport are
heavily dependent on the fuel prices. Meanwhile, the oil price has been
increasing steadily in the world market.
There are nine container shipping firms which are providing services on domestic
routes. Of these firms, Vinalines holds 40 percent of the market share, while
the remaining market share is being held by Vosco, Bien Dong, Vinafco, Vinashin
Lines and Gemadept. The enterprises have experienced an unprofitable year.
The financial report for the third quarter of 2010 of Saigon Maritime showed
that the company incurred a net loss of 8.31 billion dong in the first nine
months of the year. The third quarter alone witnessed the loss of two billion
dong because of higher expenses. Meanwhile, Dong Do Maritime Joint stock Company
said it incurred a pretax loss of 16 billion dong in the third quarter of the
year.
In general, shipping firms now can only make modest profit from shipping
services.
It’s more profitable to sell ships
According to the report by Vosco, the pretax profit of the enterprise reached
116 billion dong in the first nine months of the year. Of this amount, shipping
services brought the turnover of nearly two trillion dong. Especially, the ship
trading brought more than 97 billion dong.
Similarly, Vinaship got 31.1 billion dong in the first nine months of the year.
The sale of three ships worth more than three million dollars were a major
contribution to the company’s profit.
Vitranschart has said that the turnover in the third quarter of the company
increased by 155 billion dong. Though the shipping fees increased significantly
in comparison with 2009, the enterprise said that the profit is equal to 69.2
percent of that of the previous year, due to the increasing expenses. There has
been no figure about the profit the company earned from the sale of a ship worth
$2.8 million. However, it is clear that the sale has made a large contribution
to the 12 billion dong profit of the company.
Source: Saigon tiep thi
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