HANOI, June 16 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam's shift to a circular economy, which involves reusing resources much as possible, could generate cost savings and additional revenue for businesses, especially for such sectors as energy, agriculture, construction, tourism and electronics, Vietnam News Agency reported on Friday.
The Vietnamese government is determined to develop a circular economy based on three pillars of prolonging the material life cycle, reducing emissions, and restoring the ecosystem, said Nguyen The Chinh, former director of the Institute of Strategy and Policy on Natural Resources and Environment.
Rather than using resources and materials to make products and then throwing them away, a circular economy aims to design waste and pollution out of supply chains, keeping goods in use for longer and eventually recycling their components, said experts at a forum about the building of regulatory sandbox for circular economy development in Vietnam earlier this week.
Tran Thi Hong Minh, head of the Central Institute for Economic Management, said that the circular economy would benefit businesses through the efficient use of resources and deeper integration in the global supply chains.
As Vietnam is still slow to shift from the traditional linear economic approaches, the country is faced with such challenges as resource depletion, environmental pollution and climate change, said Nguyen Anh Duong, leader of the Central Institute for Economic Management's research department.
According to a study by the World Bank Group, about 75 percent of the material value of recyclable plastics, which is equivalent to between 2.2 billion and 2.9 billion U.S. dollars a year, in Vietnam is lost since used plastics are not recycled.
In a circular economy, Vietnam can capture that significant additional material value as well as cut back on waste and pollution harming the environment, said the World Bank.
Vu Kim Hanh, chairwoman of the Association of Vietnamese High-quality Products, the adoption of a circular economy in Vietnam would rely on technology advancements, legal framework, infrastructure and human resources.
One of the biggest obstacles is the lack of regulatory support, said Nguyan The Chinh, director of the Environmental Economic Policy Institute.
For example, without the legal framework, companies have a choice but to discharge their liquid waste into the environment because closing the water loop would put them at risk of being whistle-blown, Chinh said.
He suggested lawmakers fix such legal gap so that companies can reuse treated water in production, the same regulation would apply to after-treatment solid waste and electronic waste, he said. ■