VietNamNet Bridge – The huge assets worth trillions of dong
lying in the ships have been drifting on the open sea, while commercial banks
and finance leasing companies cannot call them back.
The part of the iceberg under the water
Tien phong has quoted its
reliable sources as reporting that by the end of 2011, the total ship
chartering outstanding loans provided by eight finance leasing companies had
reached 8.7 trillion dong. ALC 1 and ALC 2, the companies belonging to
Agribank, and BLC of BIDV Bank all had the outstanding loans worth more than
one trillion dong.
The figure would be even bigger
if counting on the ships purchased with the funding from banks and finance
leasing companies. It’s obvious that the irrecoverable loans provided to
shipping agents account for a big proportion in the total bad debts of the banking
system.
Nguyen Thi Anh Thu, Director of
ALC 1, said that when borrowing loans, all shipping companies affirmed that
they had stable clients; therefore, paying debt was quite within their reach.
Meanwhile, they now complain that the high expenses, low revenues and few
customers have pushed them against the wall.
Since 2008, the sea shipping
service market has witnessed tragic falls with the freight down by 50-60
percent. Meanwhile, they have to pay higher for fuel, workers’ salaries and
bank loan interest rates. As a result, a lot of ship owners have incurred heavy
debts.
“They have contacted us and asked
to delay the debt payment,” Thu said, adding that ALC 1 has stopped providing
finance leasing to shipping firms over the last three years, while it has been
focusing on collecting debts.
ALC 1’s ship chartering
outstanding loans have decreased to one trillion dong (112 ships).
Thu also said that ALC 1 has
reduced the lending interest rates four times since August 2011, from 18.5
percent to 15 percent. ALC 1 worked out with the borrowers in August 2012 on
the plans on debt restructuring and the debt payment schedule.
“However, despite our efforts and
compromise, the borrowers still cannot fulfill its new commitments about debt
payment,” she complained.
In fact, the three ships of ALC
1, including Minh Sang 07, Van Xuan 18 and Truong Xuan 09 still keep in
operation. However, the borrowers could only pay a part of the committed debt
amounts in recent debt payment stages.
High risks
Dam Duc Long, Secretary General
of the Vietnam Finance Leasing Association, said the finance leasing of ships
is really a tough business field for finance leasing companies.
Even big shipping firms like
VOSCO, Vitranschart, Bien Dong and Vinalines now face big difficulties, let
alone small firms. Meanwhile, most of the clients of finance leasing firms are
small companies with weak financial capability. Therefore, when they meet
difficulties due to the changes in policies or the tough business climate, they
would rather give up ships and lay off crew.
The two ALC 2’s ships Dynamic
Bright and Dai Phat with the tonnage of 5700-6900 tons, for example, and New
Sun (invested with a syndicated loan) have been abandoned at the Hai Phong port
for the last several months.
In late February 2012, An Phu 18
(3060 tons) of ALC 1 got stuck in East Timor because of food, fuel exhaustion.
Meanwhile, An Thanh Phat 386, the client of ALC 1 did not have money to
“rescue” the ship and the crew.
Finally, ALC 1, in an effort to
save the ship, advanced 2 billion dong to preserve its assets. An Phu 18 has
been carried to Vietnam for exploitation.
Tien Phong
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