SPEECH BY MS. TRAN THI MINH HA DIRECTOR GENERAL, DEPARTMENT OF INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION MINISTRY OF NATURAL RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT, VIET NAM At the 13th Environment Congress for Asia-Pacific (ECO-ASIA 2005) Gifu, Japan, June 5th, 2005 Your Excellency, Madame Chairperson KOIKE Yuriko, Minister for the Environment of Japan Excellency, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen, I would firstly be honorable to be authorised by H.E Minister of the Vietnamese Ministry of Natural Resources and Enviornment and also being on behalf of the Vietnam Delegation to extend our sincere thanks to Ministry of Environment and the Government of Gifu Prefecture for giving me an opportunity to deliver a speech at this important forum. I would also like to express our high appreciation of the theme “Measures to enhance environmental policies” of the 13th Eco Asia 2005 and the idea to dress code “down style” initiated by the organizer from the perspective of energy saving, and our impression on the presentations on local Actions by various stakeholders in Gifu Prefecture. Your excellencies, Ladies and Gentlement, As you may be aware that Vietnam is a developing country of more than 80 million people. Since the Policy of renovation was applied in Vietnam in 1986, Vietnamese economy has been rapidly developing, its average rate of annual GDP growth is about 7-8 percent, social issues such as health care, education and culture have been significantly being improved; and the environment management has been uniformly implemented only since the establishment of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment in 2002. It’s known that to go with the rapid population growth, urbanization and industrialization, the Vietnam environment has been facing to many challenges. Such as, the unwell-planning, overexploitation of natural resources, environment activities in some areas, particularly in urban and industrial ones (including rural 1 and coastal zones) have been polluting and degraded; environmental incidents have been accelerating, etc. While the addressing those resources are the short adequacy of the institutional, legal, financial and human resource capability. During the past years, Vietnam has made a lot of much its efforts to improve and restore its clean environment. Institutional system, policy and legislation on environmental protection have been gradually developed. National Strategy for Environmental Protection to 2010 and vision to 2020 has been approved. We are now in the process of revising the Environment Protection Law. In conclusion, the environment protection issue is presently given high priorities by the Government of Vietnam. This can be proved by Agreements recently signed between MONRE and public or individual stakeholders on commnitment of their involvement in the environment protection activities; and Government has decided to allocate the investment for environmental protection activities all over the country. The investment will be 1.0 percent of GDP since 2006. At this important forum, I do hope that environmental government bodies, research institutes and businesses should discuss, exchange and share information and experience with each other and seek opportunities to develop cooperations towards our future of sustainable development. Your excellencies, Ladies and Gentlement, Being requested to give speech within 3 minutes, I woild like to enclosed herewith our soincere thanks for your attention and wish, your excellency Minister - Madam Chair, Ladies and Gentlement a health and our conference every success. Thank you, 2