Promoting Environmental Investment in Economic Zones & Handicraft Villages

Vietnam has around 2,100 handicraft villages, including 300 traditional handicraft villages, which generate jobs for more than 4 million workers and bring in enormous socioeconomic benefits. However, environmental status and the enforcement of environmental laws in industrial parks and handicraft villages are posing new challenges.

Early in 2011, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment submitted a report on “Enforcement of environmental policies and laws in economic zones and handicraft villages” to the Standing Committee of the lawmaking National Assembly.

 

According to the report on the enforcement of environmental policies and laws in economic zones and handicraft villages submitted to the Standing Committee of the lawmaking National Assembly in early 2011, wastes from handicraft villages are not of great volume but improper disposal impairs landscape and culture and pollutes the environment. Besides, pollution in handicraft villages causes direct impacts on local villagers. Risk exposures to employees are high. 95 percent of workers are exposed to dust and smoke, 85.9 percent contact heat, and 59.6 percent are exposed to chemicals. Besides, environmental pollution in handicraft villages affect other social and economic problems like rising costs for health care, reducing labour productivity, increasing sick leaves, weakening the tourist attraction, etc.

 

At the end of September 2011, the Oversight Board appointed by the National Assembly’s Standing Committee completed surveys on the enforcement of environmental laws and policies in 15 coastal economic zones and 48 handicraft villages. It worked with leaders of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment, the Ministry of Planning and Investment, the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development, the Ministry of Construction, relevant bodies, and 22 provincial People's Committees on this matter. The board also put forth proposed solutions to enhance the enforcement of environmental laws and policies in industrial parks and handicraft villages nationwide.

According to the board, to date, there are 57 legal documents directly related to economic zones and environmental protection in economic zones. Provincial People's Committees have issued 41 documents to instruct the implementation of laws on coastal economic zones.

 

Although legal documents on environment, related standards, technical specifications are relatively sufficient, the issue of documents for enforcement of the laws is still slow. Besides, there are not enough regulations on management of specialised mediums while regulations on authority and responsibility are overlapped. For example, Environmental Protection Law 2005 provides regulations on economic zones but the Circular on “Managing and protecting environment in economic zones, high tech parks, and industrial complexes” had not been issued until 2009. Or the Decree 29/2008 dated March 14, 2008 on industrial parks, export processing zones and economic zones provided that the management board/authority of economic zones has inspectors but the Law on Inspection does not have such a provision. Besides, there are a lot of separate documents on planning, management and environmental protection of handicraft villages. Localities also have their own regulations on sustainable development of handicraft villages. However, many State regulations are impracticable in handicraft villages.

The State Budget spends just 1 percent on environmental protection and this is not enough to deal with urgent matters. According to the oversight board, the supervision over allocation, management and usage of State Budget for environment needs to be strengthened. Although the budget is meagre, most localities have not clearly defined expenses for environmental protection infrastructure development in economic zones. They have not, or ineffectively or incorrectly or insufficiently, allocated budgets for environmental issues.

 

Only a few localities have allocated budgets for environmental monitoring but the funding is just enough to carry out in some points of the year, not on a regular basis. In 2009 and 2010, Binh Dinh, Ha Tinh, Nghe An and Khanh Hoa provinces spent less than VND873 million (US$40,000) on environmental issues. The budget for handicraft villages is even much less. Thus, the Oversight Group proposed increasing supervision over budget allocation, management and usage for environment.