Collaboration with VIMARU and VINASHIN

Collaboration between Vietnamese and Norwegian interests aims to enhance competency and capacity within Vietnam’s maritime, offshore and shipbuilding sectors.

2008-06-13

Vietnam Maritime University (VIMARU) and the Vietnam Shipbuilding Industry Group (VINASHIN), and Norway’s Marintek and DNV have agreed to collaborate in a cooperative project to enhance capacity development in Vietnam.

"The success of this project, dubbed the Twinning Programme, will create a platform to enhance competency and capacity within the maritime and offshore sector in Vietnam by adopting the latest know-how and state-of-the-art technology in education, training and R&D collaboration,” says George McHenry, Head of DNV Academy in Vietnam.

The parties recently signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in Oslo. The objective is to strengthen the capability and capacity at VIMARU to meet demands and requirements at an international level and from industry in Vietnam, as represented in particular by VINASHIN. Key focus areas include:

* naval architecture education
* environmental education
* transportation and logistics education
* shipbuilding design
* research and development cooperation

George McHenry emphasized that Vietnam is a fast developing country where the shipbuilding sector is one of few prioritized by the government to lead the socio economic development of the country. “Vietnam’s fledgling shipbuilding industry has its sights on becoming the world’s fourth largest shipbuilder over the next decade but there is a gap between academia and the needs of the industry, mainly due to capabilities and lack of capacity within the academic sector,” he said.

He added, “Because of the strong growth in the maritime and shipbuilding sector, Vietnam students have a unique opportunity to get first hand experience to be engaged in large scale production of commercial tonnage, which is not the case in much of Europe, but knowledge and skills development is strongly required for this to take place.”

Strategic partner

One of the main aims of the cooperation according to George McHenry is to engage teaching staff and experts from Norway in order to develop curriculum activities and R&D activities between the parties, and at the same time “engage VINASHIN as strategic partner” to meet local requirements to secure a sustainable future for the Vietnamese shipping, offshore and shipbuilding sectors. Through this initiative DNV also makes a “corporate responsibility impact” on the education of naval architects in Vietnam.

As reported earlier, DNV has also committed to assist in the development of Vietnam’s shipbuilding industry through a 3-year training programme for VINASHIN shipyard management and staff. “DNV is committed to further developing Vietnam’s shipbuilding industry to ensure its products satisfy international rules and standards. To this end, we have jointly developed a 3-year training programme for all VINASHIN shipyard staff. Supported by NORAD (the Norwegian Agency for Development Cooperation) more than 1,200 people each year will be trained in different aspects of shipbuilding,” said George McHenry.

“DNV is an important partner to us, not only supplying traditional classification services, but helping us with our expansion, not least on the training side,” said Phan Thanh Binh, Chief Executive Officer of VINASHIN at the signing ceremony.

Separate to the Twinning Programme MOU, VINASHIN also signed MOU’s with both the Bergen and Aalesund University colleges.

DNV