VietNamNet Bridge – Research has shown that if Vietnam collects an emissions fee of VND316 per litre of fuel it will be able to limit pollution.

According to Sy and his colleagues, exhaust in HCM City has four sources: industrial waste, construction material workshops, metal production workshops and means of transportation.

The team has suggested three tools to manage exhaust fumes in HCM City: 1/ collecting emissions tax 2/ collecting environmental protection tax and 3/ granting licences to release exhaust.

The team is developing a project on collecting an exhaust fume fee initiated by the Environmental Management Department under the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment.

They have suggested collecting the fee right from purchases of fuel, VND316/litre. HCM City has the fuel consumption volume of 1-2mil tonnes a year, which means that the city’s authorities would be able to collect VND395-790bil in fees a year.

Regarding environmental protection taxation, the team has suggested collecting taxes on carbon, sulphur and CFC emissions. The suggested fee is $12.67/tonne (VND203,987/tonne) for carbon, $3.46/tonne for CO2 (VND55,706/tonne) and $312/tonne for Sulphur (VND5,148,000/tonne), and $5.69/tonne (VND93,885/tonne).

As far as the licencing scheme, state management authorities will consider licencing businesses to emit CO2, CO, SO2, NO2 for 5-10 year periods.

Experts also said that Vietnam needs to gradually apply the exhaust fee tax scheme. The team will cooperate with the city’s environmental protection agency to build up a detailed project on the taxation. Workshops and meetings with experts will also be held to discuss the issue.

In the US, a fee of $31/tonne is imposed on dust, SOx, NOx, VOC, lead and HAPs from all industrial establishments. Japan collects $0.625-56.25/cu m of SO2. Poland collects $75/tonne of SOx and NOx

Le Quynh