Vietnam is a big textile and garment exporter

Vinh Phuc provincial authorities rejected on four different occasions the $350 million textile & dyeing project registered by TAL Group from China.

The project is estimated to discharge 11,840 cubic meters of waste water a day to May River, which is nearly double the water volume of the river. Experts warn that the consequences would be serious if problems occur and the river cannot fully dilute the waste water.

In 2014, Da Nang City refused two projects. The former, capitalized at $200 million, was registered by a textile & garment group from Hong Kong, while the latter, a textile & dyeing complex, covering an area of 30 hectares, was registered by a South Korean company.

In 2018, Tay Ninh province rejected TMTC Industrial Zone (IZ) Development’s plan to develop a textile & dyeing outsourcing project in the IZ. The document signed by the deputy chair of Tay Ninh clearly said that TMTC IZ was not allowed to receive the projects in the textile & dyeing industry.

Meanwhile, existing textile & dyeing projects cannot expand their investments. The government, ministries and local authorities did not approve the Taiwanese Eclat Fabrics Vietnam’s (EFV) plan on expanding the dyeing production scale from 10 percent to 100 percent.

HCMC, Binh Duong, Dong Nai and Ba Ria-Vung Tau all have decided to restrict or stop receiving projects thst require dyeing and finishing processes.

A report found that by the end of 2015, HCMC had 50 enterprises in the textile & dyeing industry. The municipal authorities have stopped licensing projects in polluting industries.

In Dong Nai province, the projects in the industry will only be approved if they are located in an IZ and can meet standards on waste treatment.

The northern province of Hai Duong, which does not have big advantages in attracting FDI, has also decided to stop attracting investment in six production fields, including weaving and dyeing.

In textile industry, fabric dyeing and finishing processes are the most polluting stages because they consume a high volume of water and discharge a lot of waste water with a high BID and COD concentration, toxic heavy metals, and suspended solids. 

The World Bank estimates that every year, the weaving & dyeing industry uses one-fourth of the total volume of chemicals used globally, while one-fifth of the global polluted water is produced by the industry.

Nguyen Thi Tuyet Mai, secretary general of the Vietnam Textile & Apparel Association, said the textile & garment industry is the second biggest water-source polluting industry and that waste water treatment is very costly.

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