It is estimated that the total volume of goods through Vietnam's seaports in 2021 will reach nearly 700 million tons. Illustration

However, the market share of import and export transportation of Vietnam is mainly dominated by foreign shipping lines. According to the Vietnam Maritime Administration, our international shipping fleet is in a weak position in the market, the freight market share is decreasing: in 2015 it took on 11%, in 2018 it decreased to 7% and Only 6% now.

Worryingly, the majority of international shipping ships have not met the requirements of safety, maritime security, maritime labor and prevention of environmental pollution, leading to the number of our ships being kept at the port. foreign sea is still high. The fleet structure is not reasonable, mainly small tonnage ships carrying dry cargo, bulk cargo, lack of container ships, large tonnage ships running on international routes... Therefore, Vietnam's shipping fleet mainly runs Short routes such as: China, Southeast Asia, Asia.

The size of the domestic fleet is decreasing as the trend of Vietnamese enterprises investing in foreign ships has doubled in the past 7 years. Currently, Vietnamese enterprises own 150 ships with foreign flags, accounting for 14% in number and 25% tonnage of the national fleet.

Explaining this trend, experts said, Vietnamese businesses often only have the financial capacity to buy ships with large tonnage that are over 15 years old, so they are not eligible to register to fly the Vietnamese flag. . If you register a ship with a foreign flag, you have just avoided a huge tax and fee when carrying out import procedures and registering a ship with a Vietnamese flag (import tax, value added tax, etc.) registration tax...); It is convenient for international transportation as well as for time chartering, without having to bring the ship to Vietnam for registration.

This consequence led to a sharp decrease in the market share of import and export freight transport of the national fleet. The State also does not collect a tax or fee when a ship flies a foreign flag.

Obviously, the construction and development of a national fleet of ships capable of competing in the international market is an urgent requirement that is being set. Especially in the context of the disruption of the worldwide supply chain, the price of container shipping by sea has increased dramatically, seriously affecting import and export activities.

According to the Vietnam Maritime Administration, it is difficult to develop a fleet of long-distance container ships if the State does not have policies to ease loan conditions and tax incentives. The 2015 Maritime Code stipulates that priority should be given to the development of the shipping fleet through preferential policies on taxes and loan interest rates, but so far there is no legal document stipulating the preferential levels.

Experience from the Philippines shows that the government of this country passed the maritime law to provide low-interest loans or the government guaranteed loans and financial financing for businesses to buy ships. As a result, the proportion of national freight transported by Philippine-flagged vessels has increased from 7.8% to 15% within 6 years. For Malaysia, when buying ships, the state will receive a tax reduction and an exemption of 50% of taxable revenue.

Therefore, in order to develop the fleet, the Government needs to issue import tax exemption and reduction policies for Vietnamese ship owners to replace existing old ships with new ones under 15 years old or with larger tonnage, and at the same time 50% reduction in tonnage fees for a period of 5 years when ship owners buy and operate container ships of 1,500 TEU or more or ships powered by clean energy; exemption and reduction of corporate income tax within 10 years for Vietnamese logistics enterprises with a monthly export and import container volume of 500 TEU or more...

Hoang Lam