The state-run Vietnam Shipbuilding Industry Group (Vinashin Group) obtained shipbuilding contracts worth nearly US$5.7 billion by the end of June, Dien Dan Doanh Nghiep (Vietnam Business Forum) reported.
Of the sum, domestic contracts generated US$1.8 billion while contracts with foreign shipping firms accounted for US$3.8 billion, it said.
Notably, Vinashin, the largest shipbuilder in Vietnam, is building 32 medium cargo ships for the state-run Vietnam National Shipping Lines (Vinalines), three 105,000-ton oil tankers for Vietnam’s PetroVietnam and twenty-one 53,000-DWT cargo ships for UK’s Graig Investments Group.
With the aim of upgrading Vietnamese shipbuilding capacity from the world’s 11th position to the fourth place by 2010, the shipbuilder is will expand existing shipyards and build additional ones to form major shipbuilding complexes throughout the country, the newspaper quoted Vinashin Chairman Pham Thanh Binh as saying.
Vinashin Group has planned to invest US$3 billion from now until 2015 in its major investment projects and to pour money into supporting industries to raise the locally sourced component ratio to 60 per cent by 2010 from the current 20 per cent.
By then, Vinashin is capable of building 80,000 DWT, container vessels of 3,000-TEUs and oil tankers of over 100,000 tons by 2010.
The group targets US$1 billion revenues this year, doubling the amount it earned last year. The group will achieve an annual income of US$3 billion by 2015.
Vinashin Group, set up in 1995, has 93 affiliated companies.
P.V
Vietnamese
