The Environment Administration under the Ministry of Natural Resourcesand Environment on July 8 held a conference to launch a project toupdate Vietnam’s national implementation plan for the StockholmConvention on persistent organic pollutants (POPs).

The two-year project, funded by the United Nations DevelopmentProgramme’s Global Environment Facility (GEF), has been conducted since2013 with the aim of realising Vietnam ’s obligations under theconvention.

According to Dr. Nguyen Anh Tuan fromthe Pollution Control Department, the project includes five components,including stocktaking POPs, assessing the national capacity inimplementing the convention, and defining priorities of the plan.

The plan, to be updated with a system of actions and synchronicmeasures to better meet requirements of the convention, will besubmitted to the Prime Minister for approval, and then sent to theConference of the Parties to the Stockholm Convention.

Tran The Loan, deputy head of the Pollution Control Department underthe Environment General Department, noted that Vietnam has activelyengaged in controlling pollutants with specific actions, including theratification of the convention and a number of laws such as the Law onEnvironmental Protection and the Law on Chemical.

The country will also renew the plan with more effective policies, laws,management institutions, technologies and financial sources, whiledesigning a roadmap to implement it, thus contributing to protectingpeople’s health and the environment from POPs, he said.

Signed in Stockholm in 2001 and become effective in 2004, theconvention targets the management and elimination of 23 dangerous groupsof chemicals.

Vietnam ratified the convention in July 2002, becoming the 14th signatory party.-VNA