Hanoi (VNA) - At the beginning of the Year of the Dragon, the Ministry oꦿf Natural Resources and Environment made significant strides as the Land Law (amend♑ed) was approved by the 15th National Assembly during its extraordinary fifth session, drawing considerable attention from experts, businesses, and citizens nationwide.

Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Dang Quoc Khanh stressed the Land Law as a major and critically important legislation in the political, socio-economic, defense, security, and environmental protection aspects of the country. The amended Land Law consists of 16 chapters and 260 articles, with revisions and additions made to 180 out of 212 articles of the 2013 Land Law, and 78 new articles aligned with the Party's direction. This amendment aims to address obstacles encountered during the implementation of the law. The land policy concerning ethnic minority communities is also one of the aspects researched and supplemented in this law. In 2024, the Government and the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment will focus on finalizing detailed regulations and guidelines for implementing the law. When the law comes into effect (from January 1, 2025), it will ensure the consistency of the legal system and contribute to the country’s socio-economic development in the coming period.

Managing resources in a comprehensive, smart manner

The 2023 Water Resources Law will come into effect on July 1. Minister Dang Quoc Khanh urged units in the water resources sector to actively coordinate and efficiently implement the law, ensuring progress and quality, while refining legal policies with a strategic, long-term vision to set appropriate goals aligned with practical requirements. Units in the sector are urged to accelerate digital transformation, focusing on research and development of water resource databases to ensure "enough, clean, sustainable" resources; leverage local capacities to enhance management based on intelligent water resource governance; and strengthen monitoring and surveillance to prevent violations. For the enforcement of environmental protection laws, the ministry has recently focused on monitoring facilities and areas with high-risk production activities causing environmental pollution. They have urged investors in industrial zones, clusters, and service areas to concentrate on constructing and operating centralized wastewater treatment systems, ensuring that the proportion of industrial zones with centralized wastewater treatment systems meets environmental technical standards by 92%...

Focus placed on accelerating green transformation, institutionalizing laws

This year, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment aims to operationalize the unified land information system and land database, focusing on interconnecting various sectors. It will also operate the national geographic information portal, environmental monitoring data, and basic resource surveys. Efforts will be made to address land and resource wastage, improve land accessibility, and increase satisfaction indices of citizens and businesses with land and environmental procedures by 2-3%. In 2024, the ministry is determined to accelerate green and digital transformation, gradually positioning Vietnam as a development model in the region and globally for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, protecting health, ensuring safety, prosperity, and a cleaner, greener future. In particular, the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment aims to improve the system of standards, regulations, and technical provisions for meteorological and hydrological operations to effectively enforce the Meteorology and Hydrology Law. The Ministry also wants to enhance the quality of weather forecasting, provide detailed weather and hydrological forecasts for districts and towns nationwide. It will also disseminate weather forecast bulletins and warnings about hazardous weather phenomena to central and local authorities, and media outlets to support disaster prevention and mitigation efforts./.