The meeting takes place in Quang Nam province on September 29 (Photo: baodautu.vn) Quang Nam (VNA) – The Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) will include basic regulations on eco-industrial parks (EIPs) in some draft decrees to be submitted to the Government for consideration later this year.
An expert group meeting on EIPs in Vietnam was held by the MPI and the UN Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) in the central province of Quang Nam on September 29.
Many participants said EIPs are a new model in Vietnam and haven’t been stipulated in any legal document. Basically, an EIP has cleaner production processes with updated technologies to promote energy efficiency.
To form EIPs, it is necessary to set higher standards for greenhouse gas emissions and waste treatment and encourage the use of recycling and energy reuse technologies.
By June 2016, Vietnam had 321 industrial parks and export processing zones. They housed over 6,600 FDI projects and 6,200 domestically invested projects with a combined capital of over 105 billion USD and 693 trillion VND (31 billion USD).
Businesses in industrial parks account for more than 50 percent of industrial production value and 53 percent of export revenue of Vietnam every year, said Tran Duy Dong, Director of the MPI’s Economic Zone Management Department.
However, industrial activities are posing numerous challenges to the environment and human health. Up to 16 percent of operational industrial parks haven’t had wastewater treatment plants, and 20 percent of industrial waste is hazardous.
Therefore, building EIPs is critical to improving production efficiency and environmental protection, Dong said.
The MPI is working with the UNIDO to carry out a 4.5 million USD project on implementing the EIP initiative for sustainable industrial zones in Vietnam. The project is piloted in the industrial parks of Khanh Phu (Ninh Binh province), Khanh Hoa (Da Nang city), and Tra Noc 1 and 2 (Can Tho city).-VNA
