The Vietnam Maritime Bureau (Vinamarine) has warned ship owners against using substandard ships after finding that that the number of ships held in custody rose significantly during Q1 2017. Deputy head of Vinamarine Nguyen Hoang said that Vinamarine and the Vietnam Register (VR) have applied comprehensive measures to prevent Vietnamese ships from returning to the Tokyo MOU’s ‘black list’, said Hellenic Shipping News.
The Vietnamese fleet comprises 462 ships with a capacity of 500 gt or more running on international routes. During Q1, 214 ships were examined at international ports, of which 10 (4.67%) were held in custody because of several problems. That percentage compared with 3.55% in Q1 2014, 2.77% in Q1 2015 and 4.04% during Q1 2016. Six vessels were held in custody in China, two in Malaysia, one in Indonesia and one in Fiji. They were found to have problems relating to fire prevention and firefighting, lifebuoy equipment, the vessels’ watertight and weathertight conditions, systems used in case of emergency, and maritime safety & ship management systems.
The Vietnamese fleet had been on a black list, subject to strict control by port authorities, but in 2015/16 was put by a Tokyo MOU on the ‘white list’. According to the Tokyo MOU, if a member country has a proportion of ships held in custody exceeding a certain threshold, the fleet of the country will be excluded put on a black list.