Hanoi: The government’s ambitious targets to hike the amount of local goods shipped on domestic hulls is unlikely to be met as the local industry swirls in vats of red ink, a consultant has warned.

“It becomes harder and harder for Vietnam’s ship fleets to achieve dual important targets it is obliged to reach by 2020: transporting 200-292m tonnes of cargos, representing 9-10% of Vietnam’s total transport volume and hiking import export transport market share to 25-30%,” Portcoast Consultant Corporation’s deputy general director Nguyen Manh Ung told local media.

Portcoast, under the Vietnam Maritime Administration (VMA), has been tasked with meeting these goals.

Foreign ships continue to dominate. At the end of last year the local fleet consisted of 1,755 ships with a total tonnage of 6.9m dwt, only taking 12% of the market share, mainly operating on short routes of less than 2,000km.

“Vietnamese ship fleet’s market share has sunk significantly amid fierce competition from foreign rivals whereas a suitable roadmap and conditions are needed to improve the situation,” said the Portcoast official.

Struggling against huge debts the chairman of Vietnam Shipowners’ Association Vu Xuan Quynh has said that from now until 2015 shipping firms’ prime target was to restructure their fleets to boost operational efficiency. A vast sell off of old tonnage is needed, with Vinalines alone set to offload around 1.4m dwt of ships.