The country’s biggest shipping firm said it has 11 old ships with a cargo capacity of 232,000 tons which it plans to sell this year and replace with newer ones with better technology.

Not only do they not fetch profits but are also high-maintenance, company executives said.

The Vietnam National Shipping Lines (Vinalines) has a fleet of 81 ships with an average age of 16.7 years and capacity of 1.7 million tons, accounting for 25 percent of all ships flying the Vietnamese flag.

It targets a profit of VND223 billion ($9.6 million) in the second half of the year. It also plans to sell off three chronically loss-making subsidiaries and reduce its stakes in two others.

The state-owned company made a profit of VND42 billion ($1.8 million) in the first six months of 2018.

On Monday spokespersons of five of its subsidiaries announced they had sold 6.31 million shares in Coteccons and were no longer a major shareholder. The fund’s holdings have shrunk from 10.31 percent to 2.05 percent following the sale on August 6.

Coteccons reported a second quarter pre-tax profit of VND156 billion ($6.72 million), down 71 percent year-on-year, the third consecutive quarterly decline and the lowest profit figure in the last four years.

Since 2018 the rising cost of construction materials and increasing competition have squeezed margins, the company management explained in the latest half-yearly report.

On the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange, the company’s shares closed Monday 3.1 percent down at VND102,000 ($4.4), down 36.3 percent from VND160,000 ($6.9) at the beginning of this year and down 55.7 percent from its VND230,000 ($9.9) peak in early 2018.

Korea Investment Management entered Vietnam in 2006, and has stakes in blue chips such as Vinamilk, Vietnam’s biggest dairy company, and steel giant Hoa Phat