On August 24, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc chaired a national teleconference on environmental protection.Attending the teleconference, there were Deputy Prime Minister Truong Hoa Binh, Vu Duc Dam, Trinh Dinh Dung; leaders of ministries and departments and 63 provinces and cities, Hanoi Party Secretary Hoang Trung Hai, Chairman of Hanoi People's Committee Nguyen Duc Chung, Vice Chairman of City Council Phung Thi Hong Ha, Fatherland Front Chairman Vu Hong Khanh.
Chairman of Hanoi People's Committee Nguyen Duc Chung made speech at the Government's teleconference on environmental protection
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Speaking at the meeting, the PM referred to environmental pollution and serious environmental incidents which have affected production and local people’s lives and caused social instability. He asked to change the mindset on development, enhance economic growth in accordance with environmental protection and sustainable development.
The PM required clarifying some issues, including evaluation of environmental pollution and shortcomings in State management leading to environmental pollution. He demanded delegates discuss difficulties and challenges on environmental protection such as expenditures, science and technology. It is necessary to fully realize the Law on Environmental Protection and ensure people’s lives, he added.
As many as 283 industrial parks are operating nationwide, discharging 550,000 m3 of waste water every day. More than 5,000 businesses are exploiting minerals, building materials. There are more than 4,500 trading villages and 45 million automobiles are circulating across the country. Since 2006, 2,229 organizations have been given administrative sanctions for violating environmental protection. “We will not try to attract investment at any cost,” PM Phuc said, emphasizing the environmental criterion in choosing investment projects. It is time to change the way of thinking towards attaching economic growth with environmental protection for sustainable development, he said.
Environmental protection is no longer an issue of the future, but the present. Therefore, it is essential to have both short-term and long-term solutions, the PM stated, adding that sustainable environment can help Vietnam stay firm in the global production value chain, he added. The Government leader noted that the heads of people’s committees at all levels should take the responsibility for the environmental protection work in their localities. He asked for closer coordination between ministries, agencies and localities in implementing the work.
The ministry was also urged to build a set of criteria to assess the environmental protection in localities from 2017. The leader requested the building of environmental protection monitoring systems in key economic zones and environmentally sensitive areas. He assigned relevant ministries and agencies to research the establishment of an emergency response committee. The Government will issue a direction on environmental protection, the PM added.
Discusing at the conference, Chairman of Hanoi People's Committee Nguyen Duc Chung confirmed that Hanoi is always interested in processing environmental solutions. So far, the collection of solid waste in the city has reached 98%, domestic waste 95%, conventional industrial waste 85%, construction waste 100% (but 60% of construction waste has been put into landfills and in dealing with household waste).
Chairman Chung reported that there are more than 2,000 investment projects that need to make reports on their impact on the environment. The country is currently home to 283 industrial zones which discharge over 550,000cu.m of wastewater per day, not to mention 615 industrial clusters along with over 500,000 production facilities. Furthermore, 787 urban areas discharge into the environment 3 million cu.m of wastewater per day, but only 40 out of the urban areas have standard waste treatment systems with a total capacity of 800,000cu.m per day.
The use of nearly 43 million motorbikes and over 2 million cars nationwide generate huge gas emission that is polluting the air environment. Over 23 million tonnes of domestic waste, 7 million tonnes of industrial waste, and 630,000 tonnes of harmful waste, together with 337 insanitary landfills and over 100 low-capacity incinerators are also the reasons for environmental pollution.
Besides, discarded packaging from around 100,000 tonnes of plant protection chemicals each year is another source of dangerous pollutants. The report noted that although FDI businesses are contributing 70 percent of the country’s GDP, they are tending to shift their investment into environmentally-unfriendly sectors such as metallurgy, ship repairing, footwear and garment.
City Chairman Nguyen Duc Chung proposed the Government to soon issue a decree on handling administrative violations in the field of environmental pollution under the Environmental Protection Act 2014 (replacing Decree 179 in 2013), so that the localities have legal base to handle environmental violations. Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment is suggested to reduce the administrative procedure on environment, water resources, increased decentralization for local management to be more favorable.
