Mai Van Phuc, CEO of Vinalines said, "this is the right and reasonable moment to have investment activities. Because at this moment, the prices of materials and equipment have gone down."
Some enterprises are waiting for interest rates of bank loans to fall before taking out loans, but Vinalines could not wait given its 4-5-year projects and long-term development strategy, Phuc said, adding that the corporation must start the investments now; otherwise projects could not be completed as planned.
The corporation will get a VND15 trillion (US$862.1 million) loan from the Bank for Investment and Development of Viet Nam (BIDV) to meet the demand for capital. Vinalines had temporarily delayed implementation of some projects due to effects of the global economic crisis. The corporation will determine which of the delayed projects really need to be completed, and then put the capital towards those.
In general, the loan would be put towards the building of ships and upgrading seaport and logistics services planned for 2010, Phuc said.
The corporation is a State-owned enterprise, which is on the path to becoming an economic group. Once it becomes an economic group, it could potentially expand into other sectors. Despite the fact that it is on this path, the current planned expansion for Vinalines is still going to be based on its key sea-shipping and sea transport industries.
Viet Nam had not yet any shipyards for repairing large ships, forcing repairs to be done abroad, Phuc said, adding that Vinalines' key task in the future would be to build a factory for repairing ships with a capacity of more than 10,000 tonnes each.
The corporation would also need to upgrade its current shipyards to become more competitive, he said.
Under Vinalines' general development strategy, it will have factories for ship repairing in northern, central and southern regions.
Besides that, Vinalines would still require the Government to give it capital from the state's stimulus package to carry out national key projects, Phuc said. They would include projects to upgrade seaports and key transport points for transporting cargo.
Vinalines estimates that its revenue earnings will reach VND20.9 trillion ($1.2 billion) in 2009, 41% higher than the previous year and 10% higher than its plan for 2008.
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