The Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE) has targeted to control and make early warnings and forecasts on air quality in urban areas and different regions across the country. 

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This is part of a plan of the MONRE in a bid to materialize PM’s Directive 03/CT-TTg, dated January 18, 2021 on strengthening air pollution control.

Specifically, relevant units of the MNRE will assess the implementation of Decision 985a/QD-TTg, dated June 1, 2016 approving the national action plan on air quality management up to 2020, with a vision toward 2025 and make proposals on air quality management in the next five years. 

The ministry will also strengthen management and implementation organization of air quality monitoring programs, make public air monitoring outcomes, and timely issue air pollution warnings to the communities. 

National environmental standards on industrial emissions and on-road motor vehicle emissions will be reviewed and updated.

The ministry will propose to the Government chief a roadmap for application of national technical standards and criteria for on-road motor vehicle emissions.

It will draft and issue criteria and ecolabels to environemtally-friendly products , transport vehicles and services and work with the Ministry of Finance to review and enforce preferential policies on environmental protection in accordance with the 2020 Environmental Protection Law. 

Relevant agencies under the MONRE will step up dissemination of information on air quality and measures to prevent air pollution; and set up interdisciplinary taskforces to control air pollution especially in hotpot areas. 

Under Decision 985a, Viet Nam plans to ensure 80% of steel, chemical and fertilizer manufacturing facilities meeting technical standards on dust and SO2, NOx, CO exhaust. 

The plan also acts on minimizing particle pollution in terms of PM10 and PM2.5 (Particulate Matter) at major sources of exhaust, mainly in industrial, energy, construction and transport sectors, while completing the implementation of the PM’s Decision 909 on controlling motorbike exhaust in provinces and cities.

Another goal of the action plan is to determine the PM10 and PM 2.5 pollution levels in big cities and increase the national capability in controlling greenhouse gas to contribute to fulfilling Viet Nam’s commitment on greenhouse gas emission.

Earlier, on January 7, the MONRE requested provinces and cities thoroughly handle hotspots of air pollution and exhaust gas emissions as the level of air pollution in some major cities, especially Ha Noi and HCM City, had increased, affecting people’s health and socio-economic development activities. The main cause is dust from construction and industrial production activities with large amounts of waste and emissions from vehicles. The two largest metropolises were asked to speed up the investment, installation and operation of the non-stop automatic air monitoring stations and conduct periodic air quality monitoring programs in the cities./.