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Industrial zones to be forced to think green
Viet Nam will impose stricter criteria for the development of industrial zones (IPs) to make them more environmentally friendly and attractive to investors, a senior official has said.
Dang Huy Dong, Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment, said Viet Nam's system of industrial parks and export processing zones would be developed into an uninterrupted chain and based on national industry development strategies.
IPs would not be interspersed with residential areas, or built on agricultural land providing stable yields, Dong said.
The Government would also have specific and stricter sanctions that force IPs to seriously comply with environment protection regulations, he added.
All projects likely to affect the environment would be required to move into the IPs from outside areas, he said. "The construction of factories outside IPs would create difficulties for management agencies to control environmental pollution," he explained.
Dong presented these plans at a recent seminar in HCM City that discussed ways to promote the development of domestic IPs in order to fully tap their potential.
Tran Hong Ky, Director of the Department for Economic Zones Management, said the country now had 228 IPs covering a combined area of 58,434ha in 56 provinces and cities. Most of them are located in southeast region and Mekong and Red River deltas.
Of these, 145 IPs have already been put into operation with about 64 per cent of the targeted land occupied, while 83 others are under construction. Binh Duong, Dong Nai and HCM City are the localities that have the most IPs at present with 28, 27 and 16, respectively.
In addition, Viet Nam also has 14 economic zones with a total area of nearly 630,000ha.
Over the last years, the IPs have played an important role in developing the economy, contributing 20 per cent of the country's exports and employing more than 1 million people.
According to the Government's planning, by 2015, the total land area occupied by the IPs will be between 60,000 and 80,000ha, and the figure would be raised to 120,000ha in 2020. About new 90 new IPs are planned to be built from now to 2015.
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