In response to the urgent demand for the development of a policy system in favour of green growth for the GMS, the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) and Vietnamese Academy of Social Science (VASS) organized a workshop on “Improving capacity of policy makers in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS)” with the topic “Mekong – The green growth centre in Pacific Asia” on 25-26 September 2012 in Halong City, Quang Ninh Province.
Participants included scientists from Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Thailand, South Korea and China. This is the initiative of the community of scientists of Vietnam, South Korea and GMS countries, with the aim of exchanging knowledge, sharing experience and improving capacity for policy makers on green growth of the subregion.
During the past 25 years, Vietnam’s national economy has achieved a lot of important results in various areas. However, its growth is yet to be truly sustainable, with quality of growth, efficiency and competitiveness of the economy not yet high. As such, making adjustments to its growth strategy following the green growth direction and thereby restructuring the economy, reducing greenhouse gas emission and coping with climate change is the path Vietnam needs to follow.
One of the leading goals is to look forward to a green economy which satisfies three important requirements, including economic development, environmental sustainability and social welfare. The selection of the green growth strategy is practically appropriate and well reflects the modern trend.
Since the ADB developed the initiative for collaboration and co-development among GMS nations in 1992, the GMS has gained significant development achievements and attracted interest from the global community. However, the GMS is currently subject to huge pressure, particularly environmental protection and sustainable development issues. The GMS is evaluated as a region rich in resources and having dynamic growth. Furthermore, it has a crucial geo-political location in Southeast Asia. However, rapid economic and population growth, unsustainable exploitation of resources and weak management are putting huge pressure on the region’s environment and threatening the livelihoods of tens of millions of citizens living in the area. Unsustainable development also badly affects livelihood of people on the banks of the Mekong River via increasing floods, water pollution, salinization and loss of biodiversity. The restructuring and shifting the growth model following green growth orientation in the GMS requires GMS nations to change their energy- and natural resources-consuming development methods to collaborating for sustainable exploitation of resources and better protection of the environment and the ecosystem.
According to Mr Nguyen Xuan Thang, VASS Chairman, it is necessary that the shift to green economy in the GMS be conducted step by step and address three issues at the same time, namely: renovating growth-driver factors and economic structural change factors, focusing on the development strategy, reducing carbon emission from economic activities through shifting to development of clean industries, accelerating application of green technologies, using clean energy and changing investment structure; establishing institutions and policies for the green economy, concentrating on development and implementation of regulations on gas emissions, establishing monitoring and evaluating mechanism, promulgating policies stimulating green production and consumption as well as replacing the form of connecting to global production network and value chains. In addition, it is essential to change social awareness, focusing on raising social awareness of environmental protection, investment in creating green jobs, development of green standards in the society and improving enterprise's responsibility to the environment in order to improve quality of life in the GMS.
Mr Cae One Kim, Senior Consultant of GGGI, emphasizes that the biggest difficulty of GMS nations in implementing green growth is collaboration among them. Nations keep discussing green growth theory but do not apply it in reality due to the lack of green growth technology and budget. South Korea has made a commitment to supporting GMS countries to achieve good results in green growth planning and implementation.
Do Ngoc
Vietnamese
