Scope for technology imports to narrow

illustration photo source: hongky.com

Under a Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST) draft on equipment and technology import management, state-owned enterprises (SOEs) will only be green-lighted for the import of brand-new production lines.

Accordingly, the procurement of machinery, equipment and technology at SOEs will be put under close control if the draft of technology, machinery and equipment import management mechanism, currently being penned by the MoST, got the government’s go-ahead.

Before compiling the draft, the MoST completed a comprehensive study of state groups’ and corporations’ import of machinery and equipment, which had worrisome results.

Accordingly, many state groups and corporations had imported equipment made during the 1960s-1970s, causing multi-million US dollar losses due to poor production efficiency and huge energy consumption and maintenance costs, even hurting the environment.

One of most critical faults involved approval and execution of the project on building southern ship repair factory and purchase of floating dock 83M, developed by Vinalines.

Vinalines approved the project when the project had yet to be included in the planning by the Ministry of Transport or had received the prime minister approval.

The floating dock was made in 1965, below maritime safety and environmental standards. Besides, it was imported when the factory project still did not have space for the dock installation; and it needed several million dollars as maintenance costs and other expenses.

Besides Vinalines, disgraced Vinashin also incurred critical faults leading to serious consequences.

For example, Vinashin executives approved ship purchases before establishing and appraising projects or did not handle competitive tender offer procedures.

Besides ship purchase faults, Vinashin also incurred faults in its thermo-power plant building projects through import of obsolete equipment.

Thereby, the MoST proposed to only allowing SOEs to import modern equipment, machinery and technology, and prioritise importing advanced equipment and technology compatible to approved projects.

In case used equipment and production lines should be imported, the SOEs must follow current regulations and MoST instructions.

Also under the draft, SOEs must not import machinery and equipment which can be manufactured by local firms with similar technical standards.

The MoST shall cooperate with relevant state bodies to oversee import of used equipment and directly manage these activities.