As of June 30, 2024, Vietnam has 88 shipbuilding enterprises and 411 inland waterway vehicle construction facilities (of which about 120 can build and repair ships with a tonnage of over 1,000 tons). The total new building capacity of shipyards is up to 2.6 million DWT per year. According to the Vietnam Shipbuilding Industry Research Report 2023-2032 on "Research and Markets", the world's largest market research database platform, Vietnam's shipbuilding industry is growing rapidly.

The Shift to Asia Continues

The shift of the shipbuilding market to Asia is an opportunity for Vietnam to take advantage of its existing conditions in terms of technology, resources, and labor to participate in building ships to export, developing a diverse fleet of ships to serve the Strategy for sustainable development of Vietnam's maritime economy to 2030, with a vision to 2045. Vietnam identifies the maritime economy as the driving force to promote the development of other economy sectors, thereby creating a fundamental and comprehensive transformation of the marine economic structure towards industrialization and modernization. On the other hand, currently, due to the increasing demand for maritime transport, the shipbuilding industry is expected to have many market opportunities. According to the list of Top 15 global shipbuilding powers (data from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development) published by Insider Monkey, Vietnam ranked 7th. Being included in the list of Top 7 shipbuilding powers in the world is a clear demonstration of the capacity and development potential of the domestic shipbuilding industry, thereby attracting many contracts.

The leader of the Shipbuilding Industry Corporation - SBIC shared: “The 21st century is the "Century of the Ocean", along with the advances in science and technology and the rapid development of the industries, humans have gradually mastered the nature, mastered the sea; activities and services to exploit the potential of the sea are constantly emerging and developing. The construction and development of the maritime economy has become the top priority and strategy of every country with a sea. The world shipbuilding market is ready to take advantage of various opportunities arising from global economic trends, geography, politics and policies of major countries. The increasing demand for maritime transport and the expansion of offshore energy projects create demand for many different types of ships, including container ships, bulk carriers, oil tankers and specialized offshore support vessels. Emerging markets in Asia, including Vietnam, especially China and South Korea, continue to dominate the shipbuilding industry with significant investments of hundreds of billions of dollars to boost shipbuilding capacity and update and apply technological advances.”

Currently, the demand for marine transport is increasing due to changes in shipping routes, requiring larger ships that can cope with harsher environments. The Vietnamese shipbuilding industry owns a chain of shipyards stretching from the North to the South, with diverse production capacity and products with high quality, meeting the needs of domestic and international markets. Vietnamese shipbuilding enterprises have been successful in building new ships with large capacity, specialized ships, high-speed ships, high-tech ships, affirming the growing importance of the Vietnamese shipbuilding industry in the world market. With the development of global trade, Vietnam's marine transport demand is also forecast to grow strongly by about 10% per year in the period of 2023 - 2030. The total demand for new construction to supplement and replace the Vietnamese marine transport fleet from now to 2030 is forecasted to be about 4-5 million DWT. The world's maritime fleet involved in cargo transport will be approximately 105,500 ships with a capacity of 100 GT or more, with an average age of over 20 years. The average growth in the global fleet's tonnage is 4.9%/year in the period 2011 - 2021.

In recent years, the size of the world's shipbuilding market has grown strongly with the trend of more modern, larger tonnage and increasing demand for green technology conversion ships and clean fuel use.

Managing the Supply Chain

Vietnam's shipbuilding industry is still heavily dependent on imported materials. There is a large room for domestic and foreign material suppliers to grow and participate in the supply chain, thereby promoting the sustainable development of this industry.

To create a playground, exchange and introduce capacity, products and technology, Shipbuilding Industry Corporation (SBIC) in collaboration with Vietnam Shipbuilding Engineering JSC (VISEC) will organize the 10th International Exhibition on Shipbuilding and Offshore Technology - Vietship 2025 from 5th to 7th March 2025. Vietship is the largest and longest established maritime exhibition in Vietnam. Vietship was first held in 2002 and has gone through 9 successful editions, with a large scale and a abundant program of activities, with the participation of many notable domestic enterprises, foreign corporations and companies from countries with the world's leading maritime industries like Japan, Korea, China, the Netherlands, Finland, Singapore... With 9 exhibitions over the past 22 years, Vietship has truly become an ideal opportunity for Vietnamese and international enterprises to meet, exchange, attract investment, discuss technology and promote trade.

In 2025, Vietship will return with a completely new look focusing on the shipbuilding and offshore energy industry. Vietship 2025 is expected to be a place to converge and demonstrate advanced technologies in the fields of shipbuilding, repair of marine equipment, construction and installation of marine structures, and supply of offshore energy services, with the goal of creating innovative cooperative solutions for challenges in the development of the maritime and offshore energy industries.

Hidden in challenges are also opportunities. This is the time for businesses operating in the shipbuilding industry to evaluate and improve their organizational structure and strengthen their brand to continue to maintain and move towards long-term, sustainable development.

https://www.marinelink.com/news/inside-vietnamese-shipbuilding-challenges-522160