The Secretariat of the Memorandum of Understanding on Port State Control in the Asia-Pacific Region has announced that Vietnam could be blacklisted due to low-quality of its vessels and a high number of detained vessels overseas.

The Asia Pacific Region’s largest port state control authority said most of the vessels were unfit for service and lacked adequate safety equipment.

This year a record 4.6% of 214 inspected vessels did not meet maritime safety and pollution prevention standards.

This rate was 4% in 2016 and 2.7% in 2015. Most of the detained vessels were unfit for service or lacking life-saving, fire safety equipment.

The detained vessels are generally cargo ships that have been in use for five to ten years. They are mostly detained in South East Asian countries.

According to the Vietnam Register, Vietnam has about 462 vessels over 50 gross tonnages operating on international routes.

The Vietnam Register also said the vessels were detained because the owners had failed to pay enough attention to the crew’s operation skills.

Vietnam had been on the blacklist before and the Vietnamese vessels became the usual target for strict inspections, causing difficulties to the firms.

Many ship owners asked to be bailed out to upgrade their vessels.

Vietnam was added to a white list in 2015 after the number of detained vessels decreased.

Authorities say if safety standards fail to improve in the second quarter of 2017, they will be subject to stricter measures and more frequent inspections.

– with dtinews