VN maritime transport become frozen because of Covid-19

ABO/VNA - While maritime passenger transport firms were paralyzed soon after Covid-19 broke out, cargo transport firms still saw growth.

Like airlines, passenger trains and cruise ships have been ‘frozen’ because of Covid-19.
In March 2020, only two cruise ships docked at ports in Vietnam, or just 1.6 percent in the same period last year. The number of international arrivals in Q1 decreased by 36 percent to 1,656, according to Vinamarine.

Cruise lines still don’t have plans to bring travellers back to Vietnam or plans to receive international cruise tourists. Difficulties are still burdening the sea tourism transport industry.
However, the volume of cargo going through ports keeps increasing, though very slowly.
Vinamarine’s report showed that 159 tons of goods went through ports in Q1, a slight increase of 8.4 percent compared with the same period last year. This included 5 million tons of container goods, up by 14 percent.

According to the Ministry of Transport (MOT), as general cargo ships operating on intra-Asia and Southeast Asian routes are facing difficulties, Vietnamese ship owners decided to bring ships to Vietnam to exploit the domestic market and compete directly with domestic ships.

Inland water transport also faces difficulties because of the passenger transport restriction policy. The cargo inland water transport output was 73.8 million tons, a 0.1 percent decrease compared with the same period last year.
Reports show that maritime transport globally saw an output decrease of 1.7 million TEU in the first three months of the year. The average sea freight rate has decreased by 80 percent since the Covid-19 outbreak. The epidemic has spread to many countries, affecting maritime activities of the Vietnamese fleet.

Vinalines has reported a decline of VND626 billion in consolidated revenue in Q1 and estimated a consolidated loss of VND113 billion. If the epidemic lasts until the end of the year, the revenue of Vinalines would decrease by VND300 billion this year compared with Q1 and the total loss would reach VND76 billion by the end of the year.

Vosco, a subsidiary of Vinalines, a strong player in the domestic shipping industry, which had a prosperous 2019, is once again 'in distress.

The shipping firm made a post-tax profit of VND194 billion in Q4 2019, an increase of 60 percent compared with the same period last year. The high profit helped it offset the losses of the three previous quarters and made a profit of VND51 billion in 2019.

However, Covid-19 has upset Vosco’s business plan for 2020. It incurred a loss of VND86 billion in Q1 2020.

(Source: VNA)