Packaging manufacturers prove to be the ones that feel most worried about their fate, because they bear the highest tax rates of 170-200 percent. Therefore, right when the law was being drafted, a lot of them tried to develop environment-friendly products, such as non-woven bags or biodegradable bags. However, they still do not know if their products can be sold on the market as environment friendly products, because no state management agency has come forward and recognized that the products are really environment friendly.
Manufacturers put on the tenterhooks
Vafaco, a packing company, is one of the pioneers in the field of making biodegradable bags. Nguyen Phuoc Dong, Director of Vafaco, said that Vafaco’s products use Reverte, a kind of additive, and it is degradable.
In 2008, the company sent a sample to Wells Plastic Limited, a big chemical group of the UK for testing. In 2010, Vafaco was granted the certificate on the quality of the product from the group. After that, Vafaco has put the bags into use at 5o supermarkets and enterprises in HCM City, while it is negotiating to bring the products to other supermarket chains.
However, Dong admitted that his biodegradable bags still have not had their quality recognized by any Vietnamese management agencies. Therefore, once the law on environment protection takes effect, the products developed by Vafaco would bear the same high tax rate like other plastic bags, at 40,000 dong per kilo.
Vafaco’s problem is also the problem of many other packing companies. Under the law, only the bags which can be recognized as environment friendly products in accordance with the regulations of the Ministry of Natural Resources and the Environment MONRE, to be able to enjoy environment tax exemption.
However, the problem is that Vietnam still has not given any definition which environment friendly bags mean.
Dr Le Van Khoa from the HCM City University of Technology said that in principle, the standards applied by some countries in the world, can also be applied in Vietnam. However, a problem would arise that Vietnam still does not have any center to analyze the biodegradability of products. Meanwhile, if sending samples to foreign testing centers, this will take much money and time, because the result would get only after one or two years.
Who will pay for the fees?
Besides environment friendly bags, Vietnamese enterprises have also been launching biopetrole (E5 and E10) into the market as a solution to replace fossil fuel. However, in fact, this kind of fuel still has not got legal certification on the environment friendly level.
Meanwhile, international institutions have warned that the production of this kind of petrol would have big impacts on the food security. Especially, after a lot of the motorbike explosion cases recently, people have had doubts about the compatibility of the engine and biofuel.
The Law on Environment Protection has been built on the principle that those, who cause environment pollution, have to pay money. And the answer is clear – consumers. When products are taxed high, consumers would choose other types of products, which would encourage producers to develop new products and restrict fossil materials.
However, the problem now is that the current groups of products still have not found reasonable alternatives. As such, people, who cause environment pollution, have to cause pollution and pay money unwillingly, because they have no other choice.
Source: NLD
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