Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung approved a decision to build specialized ships for maritime research and survey purposes only in local shipyards associated with Vietnam Shipbuilding Industry Corporation (SBIC).
From now onwards only member companies of the Hanoi-based SBIC, previously known as Vinashin, are allowed to join those tenders to secure the rights to build such ships.
Prime Minister Dung has assigned the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment to actively work with the Ministry of Planning and Investment and the Ministry of Finance to allocate necessary capital for the project.
The premier has also agreed to extend the repayment of advance funding worth VND200 billion (US$9.2 million) to the end of 2015 to implement the project to build ships for maritime research and survey purposes as proposed by the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment.
In 2010, Vinashin, one of Vietnam's leading shipbuilders, went bankrupt under a debt of $4.5bn in the middle of a mismanagement scandal. Vinashin, since renamed the Shipbuilding Industry Corporation, has been broken up and fully restructured from within by the government.
Vietnam currently has 120 shipyards that build different types of ships, with the lowest capacity of 1,000 DWT, which provides an important technical basis for the expansion of the entire industry.