VietNamNet Bridge – Twelve central State-owned enterprises have not solved their environmental pollution problems even though they have been asked to do so for decades, according to a report by the Ministry of Industry and Trade.

Deputy minister Hoang Quoc Vuong said two of their difficulties were finding financial sources and land.

Some enterprises still do not have a certificate of land-use rights, so they have nothing to give as a guarantee to borrow money from banks.

Other companies that were supposed to move their factories to other locations do not have sufficient funds for the move, Vuong said.

Garment and textile companies such as Thang Loi and Thanh Cong, and the Sai Gon Beer Factory, for instance, had set aside investment capital to move, but lacked enough land allocated from the land fund to implement pollution treatment systems, Sai Gon Giai Phong (Liberated Saigon) reports.

Many company owners have not paid enough attention to environmental protection and pollution problems.

For example, the Nam Dinh Garment Joint-Stock Company, which is one of the 12 polluting enterprises, has done little to resolve its problems.

It has been asked many times over eight years to build systems for waste water and solid waste and gas.

The company has invested in a waste-gas treatment system and is hiring a company to work on its solid waste, but has done nothing to treat its waste water.

The company plans to move to an industrial park by 2012, but because of financial difficulties, the date has been postponed.

Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Bui Cach Tuyen said the responsibility for environmental protection should be handled by the polluting enterprises' superior authorities.

Serious punitive measures should also be created by local authorities and related agencies.

New policies that support polluting enterprises to improve their businesses should also be created, he said.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News