Not only contributing to the protection of sea and island sovereignty by producing modern warships, the super passenger ships created by domestic shipyards are putting the Vietnamese shipbuilding industry straight on the world shipbuilding map.
The Thang Long ship is operated by Phu Quoc Express, built in Hai Phong, launched in May 2022. This is the largest single-hull high-speed ship in Vietnam with a capacity of 1,017 passengers. Compared to the Airbus A321 (44.5 m long, with 184 seats), the Thang Long ship has a capacity 5 times larger. Compared to the Boeing 787 - the world's most modern wide-body aircraft - Sputnik (Russia) news agency describes the high-speed ship as having a capacity 3 times larger. Notably, the ship is equipped with 3 modern engines manufactured by Rolls-Royce MTU of Germany with a total capacity of nearly 12,000 horsepower, helping it reach a speed of up to 32 nautical miles/hour (more than 57.6 km/hour) when running without load. The ship was chosen to carry out the "mission" of connecting Ho Chi Minh City and Con Dao by sea in just 4.5 hours and about 3.5 hours from Vung Tau. With its modern design and advanced features, the super ship Thang Long was praised by Sputnik as a "technical masterpiece". The overwhelming impression prompted Russia's leading news agency to write an article to introduce the "father" of this ship - 189 LLC (Factory Z189). This article attracted attention both domestically and internationally. Established in 1989, formerly Workshop 10B under the Engineering Department, General Staff of Military Region 3, Company 189 (now under the General Department of Defense Industry) has spent 30 years transforming itself from a combat-ready unit (repairing, building new water and land vehicles, metal material services for shipbuilding) into a prestigious, high-quality shipyard not only in Vietnam but also in the region. Because before the Thang Long ship, Factory Z189 had conquered high-end markets such as Europe, Australia, America, Asia... with hundreds of ships and thousands of boats of all kinds.
Looking back at history, 1996 marked a historic milestone when Company 189 successfully manufactured the high-class patrol boat Hai Au and the landing ship named Hung Vuong 01 - the first trial-built product in Vietnam and newly built. The HQ 798 ship product, 38 m long, has truly achieved a high level of art in the fishing boat industry with an elegant and modern design and high-class interior decoration. This was the premise for 1 year later, this factory to continue to make a breakthrough in the technology of building high-speed aluminum alloy hull ships in Vietnam when it successfully manufactured the high-speed aluminum hull patrol boat with the code ST 112 for the Border Guard Command. Next were the K122/K123 class troop carriers and military medical ships belonging to the Vietnam People's Navy. This is the most modern and largest type of ship of the Navy today, designed and constructed by Vietnam itself. The hospital ship variant of this class is currently considered one of the most modern hospital ships in Southeast Asia.
Medical ship 561 of Naval Region 4 on duty in the waters of An Bang island (Truong Sa)
Not only is the place where the region's top warships are born, Company 189 has also been very successful and effective in launching a series of ships, tourist boats - passenger boats, high-speed official boats with aluminum alloy hulls. In November 2003, the aluminum alloy double-hull passenger ship with the design code ST180 rushed quickly on the Cat Ba - Long Chau sea area at a speed of 33 nautical miles/hour, continuing to mark a milestone in Vietnamese shipbuilding technology, the first successful double-hull ship - the ST180. The ship won a Gold Medal at the Vietnam International Exhibition on Shipbuilding, Maritime and Transport Industry (2004). The ship launched after only nearly 1 year of construction not only made a strong impression on the international community about Vietnam's shipbuilding technology but also clearly demonstrated the leadership and daring to think and act of a unit of the military force. Since the fourth quarter of 2007, this unit has continued to complete four 2,600-ton export cargo ships for the Netherlands; two newly built KT29 five-star yachts for BHAYA Yacht Company; constructed high-end CT100 aluminum catamaran yachts for France, two FCS 3307 ships for the Netherlands, high-speed boats for Singapore, two RFF135 aluminum catamaran yachts for Sweden... With all of the above achievements, Factory Z189 is now considered the "cradle" of modern ships and the pride of the Vietnamese shipbuilding industry.
The achievements of Company 189 really surprised many people, because over the past two decades, the thin and weak fleet was considered the reason not only for Vietnamese shipping lines to miss out on huge profits from the international freight market but also for Vietnamese import-export enterprises to suffer because of the manipulation of foreign shipping lines. However, in reality, in terms of ownership and technology mastery, Vietnam has gathered many "big guys" capable of bringing the shipbuilding industry to compete internationally, all of whom belong to the Vietnam People's Army. First of all, we must mention Ba Son Corporation (Ba Son Joint Enterprise) under the General Department of Defense Industry. With a history of 160 years of formation and development, this is the pioneer of the Vietnamese shipbuilding mechanical industry and the first and only unit in Vietnam to build modern, high-tech combat ships. Ba Son Corporation has been successful in building and converting many types of combat ships and specialized ships for the military, building ships for domestic and international customers, such as: successfully building the first pair of gunboats TP.01 and TP.01M of Vietnam in the period 1977 - 1980. This pair of ships is currently in the combat formation of Brigade 127 (Naval Region 5) with the numbers 251 and 253.
This is also the enterprise that successfully built the first PS500 missile boat in Vietnam, numbered 381 and put into service in Naval Region 4 on October 12, 2001. This is the first anti-ship missile patrol boat built domestically under technology transfer from Russia. In particular, since the end of 2009, the 12418 (Molniya) class missile boat building program has been deployed at Ba Son Corporation and in the period 2014 - 2017, the unit has handed over 6 Molniya fast attack missile boats to the Navy, namely boats 377, 378 (June 2014); 379, 380 (July 2015); 382, 383 (October 2017), currently belonging to Naval Region 2. Also under the General Department of Defense Industry, Hong Ha Shipbuilding Company Limited (Factory Z173) from 2012 to 2015 successfully built and delivered 4 TT-400TP gunboats to the Navy. This is a patrol gunboat class, with a displacement of 475 tons (fully equipped), a maximum speed of 59 km/h, and continuous operation for up to 30 days at sea. The TT-400TP gunboat class is equipped with a 76 mm AK-176 automatic naval gun, a 6-barrel 30 mm AK-630 automatic rapid-fire gun with radar guidance, a 14.5 mm anti-aircraft machine gun and a 9K38 Igla shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missile system with 2 launchers. Another "brother", Song Thu Corporation, has also successfully built 4 new Roro 5612 multi-purpose landing transport ships. This is a new generation of landing transport ships, built according to international standards of Damen of the Netherlands. The ship is equipped with modern equipment; can land and turn around in narrow spaces, suitable for transporting marines, tanks, machinery, goods and weapons...
274 mobile gunboat on duty at sea
With the solid foundations that military units have built, a new generation of ships is being designed and built in Vietnam thanks to the footsteps of many enterprises such as Vietnam Shipbuilding Engineering Joint Stock Company (VISEC); SBIC Shipbuilding Industry Corporation; Hoa Phat Shipping Joint Stock Company (under Hoa Phat Group)... In 2023, Insider Monkey (USA) published a list of the top 15 shipbuilding powers in the world, based on data from the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), listing the percentage of ships built in 2021 of each country. Notably, Vietnam ranked 5th, with the percentage of ships built in 2021 being 0.61%. Most recently, within the framework of the 15th Annual Pioneers Meeting of the World Economic Forum held in Dalian City, Liaoning Province, China at the end of June 2024, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh met with Polish President Andrzej Duda, asking Poland to support Vietnam in the fields of basic training and shipbuilding. The new proposal promises to help Vietnam soon narrow the gap and rise to 5th place, or even 4th place in the rankings, just behind the 3 "giants" Japan, South Korea and China.
At the Vietnam Shipbuilding and Marine Machinery Exhibition 2023 (VIMOX 2023), Mr. Kenny Yong, General Director of Fireworks Trade Media Group, commented that Vietnam's shipbuilding industry has emerged as a competitive force that cannot be ignored, demonstrating remarkable growth, resilience and adaptability. With a long coastline, skilled workforce and strategic geographical location, Vietnam possesses a unique advantage in seizing the opportunities brought by the global maritime industry. "Vietnam is a country with an important maritime geographical location, where many shipping routes pass through and is an attractive destination for many countries. Therefore, the potential for the shipbuilding market is huge. Therefore, cooperation in the field of shipbuilding and shipbuilding technology is extremely important," Mr. Kenny Yong emphasized.
Fisheries surveillance ship 290 patrols through the waters of Da Lon, Truong Sa
Dr. Pham Hoai Chung, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Shipbuilding Industry Corporation, affirmed that the 21st century is the "century of the ocean". Building and developing the marine economy has become the top priority and strategy of every coastal country. Vietnam's marine economic development strategy to reach out to the sea and exploit the potential of the sea to serve the country's development is a correct and profound strategy, demonstrating the macro vision of the Party and State over the past time. On the other hand, the maritime transport industry is facing many challenges such as global economic fluctuations, logistics crises and the transition to more sustainable modes of transport. Geopolitical issues also significantly affect the world shipbuilding industry due to the impact on changing commercial sea routes, promoting demand for military ships and shipbuilding contracts. Ongoing tensions and strategic interests in areas such as the East Sea and the Arctic promote investment in naval ships and icebreakers. Additionally, trade policies and international relations are shaping the demand for commercial vessels, impacting the industry's growth trajectory.
Missile ship 381 is ready for combat at the base.
According to Mr. Pham Hoai Chung, the world shipbuilding market is ready to take advantage of various opportunities arising from global economic trends, geopolitics and policies of major countries. For Vietnam, the demand for maritime transport is also forecast to grow strongly by about 10% per year in the period of 2023 - 2030. This will promote the development of the maritime transport fleet with the efforts of Vietnamese ship owners to increase the market share of import and export transport as well as to take on 100% of domestic transport needs. Therefore, the Vietnamese shipbuilding industry can take advantage of this opportunity to expand production and competitiveness to meet domestic market demand, catching up with the trend of the new era. "Shipbuilding is a large industry, closely related to many other industries, especially the fields of mechanics, metallurgy, manufacturing, assembly of equipment, machinery, electricity, electronics, automation, new materials. For shipbuilding products to be competitive, it is necessary to have a supporting industry sector or build a global value chain for the shipbuilding industry. The characteristics of the shipbuilding industry as well as the mechanical industry have low profit margins, but have a large spillover effect on the economy, which can promote the development of many industries. Development experience of other countries shows that in order to develop the shipbuilding industry, the state needs to continue to have loan packages with preferential interest rates for shipbuilding enterprises, guarantee the performance of contracts with foreign ship owners for products that are assessed as effective. It is necessary to form large, pillar state-owned enterprises that play a leading role and comprehensively manage the shipbuilding industry such as China and Korea. At the same time, synchronously and effectively issue support mechanisms and policies. "Reasonable support to attract and train human resources; continue to research to have solutions on taxes, loan conditions, bank loan interest rates... Choosing shipbuilding with the trend of applying new technology, being environmentally friendly and using clean fuel and energy", Dr. Pham Hoai Chung expressed his opinion.
Not only contributing to the protection of sea and island sovereignty by producing modern warships, the super passenger ships created by domestic shipyards are putting the Vietnamese shipbuilding industry straight on the world shipbuilding map. 
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