Vietnam is one of five countries with the highest risk of natural disaster on the globe. As much as 70 per cent of the population face natural disaster risks and about 85 per cent of businesses are hit by storms, 45 per cent deal with flooding, and 12 per cent are inflicted by tornadoes. These data were released by Nguyen Tri Thanh, a member of the Asian Foundation in Vietnam, at a conference on “Businesses and natural disaster risk management” jointly organised in Hanoi by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) and the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI).
Mr Hoang Van Dung, Vice President of VCCI, said while climate change is a challenge to the mankind in general and Vietnam in particular, the active response to and mitigation of disaster risks is always of the top concern of Vietnam.
Impacted by climate change, natural disasters are increasingly complicated, extreme and unpredictable with growing occurrence and intensity. In the past 10 years, natural disasters have killed thousands of people and destroyed gargantuan properties. The business community has also experienced tremendous damage.
According to statistics, the destructive force causes losses equivalent to 1.5 per cent of the country’s GDP, and claims hundreds of lives and missing. Among 85 per cent of enterprises hit by storms, up to 60 per cent are damaged, with 5 per cent suffering very bad devastation and 30 per cent incurring heavy damage, mainly factories, equipment and goods.
However, according to Mr Thanh, about 5 per cent of businesses ignore risk prevention, 46 per cent show concern but make no plan for disaster prevention and response, and 33 per cent have plans but lack enough capacity and resources to continue. Natural disaster risk management policies of enterprises are insufficient and unclear or otherwise ineffective in practice. Disaster risk management projects also dot not connect business bloc or promote the role of this bloc.
Mr Nguyen Dien, Deputy Director of VCCI Da Nang Branch, said, according to risk management survey results in enterprises which had staffs attend training courses on disaster prevention and response planning in Danang, Thua Thien - Hue province, and Binh Dinh province, most enterprises do not take initiative in preventing disaster risks but waiting for State support, especially financial relief (81 per cent of in enterprises). Most companies also want to learn about State policies on disaster prevention and participate in training courses on disaster risk management (85 per cent). In addition, they still believe that the State plays a major role in disaster prevention and mitigation (95 per cent said that the State, and 91 per cent said that State public utility units, are responsible for supporting businesses to recover and rebuild after natural disasters). Enterprises do not see insurance as an important factor that helps relieve natural disasters (only 43 per cent consider insurance as a support for post-disaster recovery. And, the main reason is attributed to very complicated damage assessment process (87.57 per cent).
He added that nearly 90 per cent of respondents said that the State does not effectively implement policies that support businesses to deal with debts and borrow preferential loans to overcome disaster aftermaths to restore production and business.
He noted that current policies and resources are mainly focus response and remediation phases rather than risk prevention and mitigation. This focus is primarily directed to the community, not enterprises.
Mr Dien said enhance the awareness of disaster risk prevention and reduction, the State necessarily adjusts standards on construction of works in the context of increasing occurrence and intensity and imposes sanctions on violators.
Besides, it may consider mandatory insurance to disasters like fire and explosion. If it only encourages, it must have specific encouragement policies.
Particularly, according to Mr Dien, disaster insurance support should be granted to enterprises following all regulations on disaster prevention and have disaster prevention plans integrated in enterprises’ plans. Credit institutions should take disaster prevention and mitigation plans as a condition for borrowing.
Vietnamese
