Green development and circular economy are inevitable choices for Hai Phong

For Hai Phong City, green development and circular economy are no longer options, but inevitable trends that require drastic actions to implement.

Hai Phong with greening strategy

Hai Phong is known as a leading locality in the development of industrial parks (IPs). Since the birth of the first IP in Hai Phong City, the locality has been aware of the need for sustainable development of IPs in the direction of ecological IPs as an inevitable factor.

Mr. Nguyen Van Tung, Chairman of Hai Phong City People's Committee, said that green growth is a major goal that the City has set very early and the City is still implementing it step by step in a systematic, persistent and scientific manner. Hai Phong prioritizes the development of green industry, ecological industrial park models and industrial real estate that meet sustainable standards, are environmentally friendly and reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

“The city always encourages investors to focus on developing projects with advanced technology, modern management, high added value, spillover effects, and connections to global production and supply chains. At the same time, investors are encouraged to increase the use of renewable energy sources, wind energy, rooftop solar power, and use environmentally friendly production technologies...”, Mr. Tung emphasized.

Hai Phong currently has 14 operating industrial parks. These industrial parks have invested in synchronous technical infrastructure with an area of 6,080 hectares, creating an industrial production land fund of more than 4,000 hectares, with an average occupancy rate of about 60%. Hai Phong is preparing for a new industrial development phase until 2050.

In addition, continuing to implement the strategy of developing a digital economy, circular economy, and green growth, Hai Phong has developed a Development Project towards a green, civilized, modern seaport city, an economic city - an ecological city in the direction of urban planning, sectoral planning, and land use closely following the green growth target. In particular, research and planning of the Southern Economic Zone of the City, about 22,000 hectares; planning and establishing 25 industrial parks, with a total area of about 15,777 hectares; planning 26 industrial clusters, about 1,098 hectares, in accordance with the planning of Hai Phong City in the period of 2021-2030, with a vision to 2045.

In particular, the Southern Economic Zone is oriented by Hai Phong City as a green economic zone, becoming a model for green transformation in industrial parks and economic zones in the City. In addition, Hai Phong advocates and directs seaport units to research and invest, and access support resources to accelerate green transformation in seaport operations.

Along with developing standard industrial parks, Hai Phong is also promoting its advantage as a coastal locality by focusing on developing renewable energy, especially waste-to-energy, onshore and offshore wind power, to develop the economy associated with green and sustainable growth.

Recommend policies

At the recent Vietnam Development Bridge Forum 2024, sharing the viewpoint of creating a favorable legal environment for the green transition roadmap, from the Government's perspective, Deputy Prime Minister Tran Hong Ha said that in the green transition process, Vietnam has had very high-level documents, such as Resolution 24, strategies on green growth, climate change, environmental protection, renewable energy; laws have also been issued to initially institutionalize, such as the Law on Environmental Protection 2020. Currently, the Government is focusing on amending laws related to the electricity sector. It is expected to change a number of decrees, create a legal environment for a green transition roadmap; build a number of mechanisms to develop renewable energy industries.

For Hai Phong City, accelerating green transformation to create value and sustainable competitive advantages in the future, especially in economic development and investment attraction, is one of the important solutions. On that basis, the City focuses on key areas such as green industrial parks and economic zones ; green seaports - logistics; green industry - general services with the determination to successfully build and develop the brand "green seaport city".

According to Mr. Le Trung Kien, Head of the Hai Phong Economic Zone Management Board, over the years, Hai Phong City has always been steadfast in its green development strategy. Hai Phong has a list of projects that are encouraged and discouraged from investment. Green growth and circular economy are no longer options, but inevitable trends.

However, accelerating green transformation in Hai Phong City still faces a number of challenges.

Specifically, identifying and attracting businesses with industrial symbiosis from the beginning is a big challenge, because businesses are under pressure to recover capital quickly, while green investment requires long-term. Investment capital for development according to green and ecological criteria is always high, so it directly increases the cost of products and services in the short term. Successful green growth models in Vietnam are still limited for reference and learning. In addition, the set of indicators for measuring, evaluating and promoting green growth is still limited...

To serve green growth, Hai Phong City has 3 recommendations: perfecting the green finance and green growth policy framework; researching and promulgating green technical norms, standards, and guidelines; perfecting the planning and investment policy framework.

Thanh Son

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