VietNamNet Bridge – The Ministry of Science and Technology (MST) admitted it still has not found reasonable methods to prevent outdated technologies from entering Vietnam.

Scientists have warned that Vietnam would become the “world’s technology dumping ground” if it continues importing outdated technologies abandoned by developed countries.

MST, the “bodyguard” in charge of preventing outdated technologies from entering Vietnam, has been heavily criticized for “not fulfilling its task”.

Finally, the ministry released a legal document, Decision 20, described as an effective tool to “filter” technologies, which would help keep outdated technologies away from Vietnam.

As soon as it was released, the circular became well known. However, this was not because it could serve as an effective tool to filter technologies as MST expected, but because of its impractical provisions.

The Minister of Science and Technology, Nguyen Quan, in an interview given to Dat Viet newspaper, admitted that the legal document faced strong opposition from the business community, especially from foreign invested enterprises (FIEs).

Explaining the strong protests from FIEs, an analyst said multinationals plan to transfer their technologies and factories from other countries to Vietnam in order to optimize their global production chains in the context of the global economic crisis.

“They feared that Circular No 20 would cause their plans to fail completely,” the analyst said.

MST then had to postpone the implementation of the Circular 20 amid protests from enterprises and associations.

In principle, the import of outdated technologies has been prohibited, but as analysts pointed out, it is very difficult to define the remaining quality of old technologies.

The circular stipulated that the equipment imports must be 70-80 percent brand new when they are imported to Vietnam. However, inspection agencies found it difficult to examine equipment quality.

Inspection agencies also had to answer many questions, such as if the technologies would harm the environment and if they would consume too much power. With the current qualifications of Vietnamese assessors, this is nearly impossible to do.

The difficulties cited by Quan show that the prevention of tech waste remains an awkward question for the watchdog agency.

However, Quan showed strong determination to re-institute a barrier to prevent outdated technologies from penetrating Vietnam.

He said Circular 20 would be brought into life by the first quarter of 2015 after MST finishes consulting with relevant ministries and makes necessary amendments.

He emphasized that Vietnam needs to keep a watchful eye on the technologies sourced from China, which is trying to turn away from outdated production lines to approach more advanced technologies.

MST regularly updates the list of the Chinese technologies causing environmental pollution which may penetrate Vietnam and the list of Chinese enterprises forced to shut down because of their backward technologies.

Dat Viet