Vietnam Environment Protection Fund held a conference on financial support with the theme “To accompany  with businesses in boosting  sustainable development”, which took place in two days from August 2 until August 3, 2018  in Nha Trang. Mr. Vo Tuan Nhan – Vice Minister, Chairman of the Fund Management Board  of the Vietnam Environmental Protection Fund  (VEPF) presided over the conference.

The conference attracted the attention of more than 400 delegates from ministries and central agencies; local agencies, enterprises, scientific research institutions, environmental technology and international organizations in Vietnam, as well as news agencies and press to cover the conference.

 Mr. Vo Tuan Nhan, Chairman of the Fund Management Board (left) and Mr. Nguyen Duc Thuan, Fund Director (right)

At the conference, Mr.Nguyen Duc Thuan, Director of the Fund, said that the VEPF is a state-owned financial institution established by the Prime Minister with the function of attracting and mobilizing financial resources at home and abroad  to support the activities of environmental protection. Over the past years, Vietnam Environmental Protection Fund has provided financial support for hundreds of environmental protection projects with the amount of more than 2,500 billion.

Speaking at the meeting, Mr. Vo Tuan Nhan – Vice Minister, Chairman of the Fund Management Board affirmed that the results have confirmed the right policy of the Government on policies to support environmental protection activities, and affirmed the role of the VEPF as one of the Government’s tools in directing, managing and implementing environmental protection activities in order to achieve the objective of sustainable development of the country, economic growth goes hand in hand with environmental protection. The activities of the Fund have been paid attention to by the society and international organizations and are actively contributing to the cause of environmental protection in Vietnam. At this meeting, the Vice Minister hoped to listen to the sharing of experiences in environmental protection activities of local environmental protection funds and international organizations in Vietnam and technology solutions in the treatment of environmental pollution of enterprises to have more diverse perspectives, in order to bring into full play the efficiency of the State financial institution and efficiently use the funds of the Fund in Supporting businesses to fulfill their environmental obligations.

The conference heard reports of the environmental protection funds of localities, opinions of enterprises and international organizations on shortcomings and limitations in lending, financial support for organizations, enterprises, especially difficulties and problems in terms of mechanisms, policies, procedures and order of procedure. Thereby, contributed ideas, proposals and solutions to the environmental protection fund should be implemented in the coming time; It focused on measures to improve the process and procedures to create the most favorable conditions for enterprises. In addition, international  organizations  and businesses  shared experiences and technologies of environmental treatment in the production and business process in order to bring about economic, environmental and social benefits for each business.

m        Ms. Vuong Minh Hieu – National Coordinator of  UNIDO project

Representatives of international organizations, Ms. Vuong Minh Hieu – National Coordinator introduced the project “Implementation of Eco-Industrial Park Initiatives for  Sustainable Industrial Zones in Vietnam” (UNIDO). The UNIDO project has been piloted at 34 sites around the world to convert from traditional industrial park to ecological industrial park. At the same time, it is proposed that the VEPF allocate separate loans to UNIDO projects in the field of wastewater, waste, industrial symbiosis, resource efficient and cleaner production ( RECP) with a loan mechanism that assures the progress of the project and the enterprise.

                                                                                    Conference panorama        

So far, the Fund has provided preferential loans to nearly 300 environmental protection projects with a total loan amount of over 2,500 billions VND, sponsored activities of environmental protection with the amount of over 88 billion VND,  subsidied price for project products under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) of 234.8 billion VND and supported grid connected electricity price of 129 billion VND.

With the current large demand for environmental treatment of enterprises, Vice Minister said that businesses need to mobilize more capital from the enterprise internal resources, bank loans, foreign investment capital. In particular, the VEPF will contribute a part to these meaningful projects. In the coming time, Vice Minister Vo Tuan Nhan, Chairman of the Management Board of VEPF affirmed that the Fund will implement measures such as raising charter capital;  enhance international cooperation in order to make use of the international capital sources; mobilizing capital from domestic social organizations; strengthen the communication to many businesses know and have opportunities to approach the Fund’s preferential capital, thereby increasing the contribution to the environmental protection activities of enterprises