Fourteen people including four Vietnamese are missing following the sinking of a South Korean cargo ship on the high seas off North Korea's east coast, police said.

The recent killing of innocent Vietnamese fishermen by Chinese coast guards was a serious violation of international law, Foreign Ministry spokesman Le Dzung said in Hanoi today.

Deputy Prime Minister Vu Khoan said the Vietnamese ship and its crew, detained for an incident that occurred five years earlier, should be liberated before the Tet Lunar New Year.

Chinese ships deliberately shot to kill Vietnamese fishermen during attacks in the Gulf of Tonkin Jan. 8, said a survivor.

The ships that shot dead nine Vietnamese fishermen in two attacks in the Tonkin Gulf on Jan 8 were Chinese, Thanh Nien has been able to confirm.

8 Vietnamese fishermen were shot dead, another 8 captured after their fishing boat was attacked by foreign vessels in the Gulf of Tonkin, the boat owner told Thanh Nien Tuesday.

Joint-venture Sea Saigon Shipping is considering abandoning its ship that was unjustifiably seized in Tanzania due to high costs and the unlikely chance that the merchant ship will be released

Domestic shipping lines can only claim a slim market share of 18.5 per cent of the total shipping market leading economists to investigate why Vietnamese goods refuse domestic shipping fleets services

The Tanzanian Trade Court has turned down a lawsuit filed by Vietnam's SEA Saigon over the unreasonable detainment of its ship and 12-member crew by a Tanzanian company.

Freight forwarding services are, in many ways, the orchestra conductors of the shipping industry. As the brains behind the global industrial network, they are charged with finding the best way of moving products from point A to point B, through customs and back again. One shipment often requires several different modes of transportation, all of which must be tweaked and toned to meet a customer's budget and schedule. Throw in weather patterns, shipping regulations and customs requirements and the job becomes a daunting task.