Vietnam to Not License Steel Projects with Outdated Technologies

Vietnam will stop granting investment licenses for steel projects using outdated technologies, Minister of Industry and Trade Vu Huy Hoang said.

 

The minister was quoted by the Vietnam News Agency as saying that many localities have licensed a number of steel projects that are outside the steel industry’s development planning and use backward technologies, causing serious environmental pollution and waste of energy.

 

Hoang admitted that the use of outdated technologies was among the main reasons behind the country’s high power consumption in recent years.

 

Under the steel industry’s development planning approved by the government in 2007, Vietnam’s steel products output will stand between 15 million and 18 million tons per year by 2020. However, aggressive and haphazard licensing of local authorities has helped to push up the combined annual capacity of existing projects to 60 million tons.

 

The state-owned Electricity of Vietnam Group (EVN), the country’s sole power distributor, has recently blamed the mushroom growth of new steel projects in Vietnam for the imbalance in power supply and demand in the country for a decade.

 

In order to ease EVN’s power supply burden, the group is seeking the government’s approval to allow investors of steel projects with power demand of 100 MVA upwards to build power sources for themselves, and to sell redundant energy to the national power grid.

 

Vietnam has had 74 steel and cast iron projects to date, excluding several steel plants managed by Vietnam Steel Corporation (Vnsteel). The country reports 32 projects out of the industry’s planning. (VNS)