Vietnam Amends Implementing Decree for Environmental Protection Law 2020: Part 1 – Environmental Licensing and Related Provisions 
On January 5, 2025, the Government of Vietnam promulgated “Decree No. 05/2025/ND-CP Amending and Supplementing Decree No. 08/2022/ND-CP Detailing a Number of Articles of Law on Environmental Protection”, which came into effect on the same day (“the new Decree”). The Decree No. 08/2022/ND-CP was promulgated and entered into force on January 10, 2022, and is the most important of the subordinate regulations of the Law on Environmental Protection 2020. Amendments to the Decree have been raised and examined since 2023, and were finally passed after various public comments were solicited from ministries and industries. The main revisions made this time include: reduction of the scope of various environmental permits and licenses, such as approval of environmental impact assessment (EIA) and environmental licenses, and changes in their application destination; changes in the application destination for various environmental permits and licenses; clarification of the obligation to renew and reissue environmental licenses; exemption from environmental registration; import of scrap metal as raw materials for production; and revision of the list of products containing POPs; modifications to the scope of Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) scheme and the import/export preferential tax system.
The following sections describe the main revisions, excluding those related to POPs and EPR regulations.
Reduction of the scope of various environmental permits and licenses
The new Decree amends and clarifies several provisions in Annex II “List of Forms of Manufacturing, Trading and Services that may Cause Environmental Pollution” (17 sectors in total) that are important for determining the scope of EIA and environmental licenses under Decree 08/2022/ND-CP.
For example, with regard to “No. 17 Manufacture of Electrical and Electronic Equipment and Components,” one of the amended items in the list, the new Decree introduces a threshold for “small-scale” production: i.e., less than 100,000 units per year of electronic equipment; or less than 100 tons per year of electrical equipment. In contrast, the previous Decree simply stipulated that “before initiating any electrical and electronic equipment manufacturing project, approval of an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) or application for and acquisition of an environmental license is required depending on the production volume.”
In addition, the new Decree simplifies the criteria for determination of regulatory targets: instead of the previous criteria based on both the number and weight of products manufactured, the new Decree requires only one criterion to determine if a facility is covered by the regulation. For example, the number of products is considered for electronic devices and the weight for electrical devices. The threshold values have also been eased to five times higher than the previous levels. Furthermore, the targeted manufacturing processes are now limited to cases involving plating, painting with paints or chemicals, or chemical cleaning.
Incidentally, manufacturing projects that fall under the “large-scale” production (Group I as defined in Annex III) and “medium-scale” production (Group II as defined in Annex IV) as specified in Annex II of Decree 08/2022/ND-CP are subject to mandatory EIA implementation. In addition to Groups I and II, manufacturing projects that fall under “small-scale” production (Group III as defined in Annex V) and generate waste requiring treatment are subject to mandatory environmental license acquisition. For more details, please refer to Annexes II to V of the said Decree.
Change of application destination for environmental permits and licenses
One of the key amendments to the new Decree is that the authority to review applications for EIAs and environmental licenses has been delegated to the local People’s Committees, except for projects involving two or more provinces (or regions). This decentralization of review authority is intended to expedite the review process by avoiding the concentration of reviews at the central government level, specifically the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MONRE).
Clarification of the obligation to renew and reissue environmental licenses
The new Decree clarifies the requirements for renewal or reissuance of environmental licenses for business investment projects with environmental licenses due to changes in their facilities, as follows
Renewal of environmental license
Business operators must renew their environmental licenses if any changes are made to what is permitted in the environmental license due to factory expansion, increase in production volume, change in production technology, etc.
However, this does not apply to the reissuance of an environmental license (see below).
Reissuance of environmental license
Business operators must apply for reissuance of environmental licenses if the environmental impact of the project is likely to increase due to expansion of the plant, increase in production volume, or change in production technology.
*Except in cases where the investment project has been reclassified or is subject to an EIA.
In addition, any changes that may increase environmental impacts, as stipulated in Article 44, Section 3b of the Law on Environmental Protection 2020, are also subject to environmental license reissuance. For manufacturing facilities, the notable changes that require mandatory license reissuance are as follows:
- Increase in the amounts of emissions of wastewater, dust or exhaust gases by more than 10%, increasing the emissions of pollutants into the environment.
- Change in the treatment technologies for wastewater, dust, and exhaust gases (unless additional equipment or treatment processes are required for the treatment).
- Change in the destination of treated wastewater to a destination where more stringent standards are applied.
- Not having installed environmental incident prevention equipment for wastewater treatment systems or reducing the scale of such systems.
- Introduction of additional recycling, processing, and co-processing methods for waste using existing technology, environmental protection engineering works, and manufacturing facilities.
- Increase in the variety or quantity of scrap imported as production raw materials.
*A previously drafted amendment to Decree 08/2022/ND-CP, which was published on October 20, 2023, included a provision that mandates reissuance or renewal of the environmental license based on the percentage increase in the facility’s production volume, but this revision was not adopted in the new Decree. Meanwhile, under the new Decree, EIA must be re-conducted if production volume of a manufacturing facility increases by 30% or more.
Expansion of environmental registration exemptions
Under the Law on Environmental Protection 2020, facilities that generate waste but are not subject to environmental license are designated as subject to an “environmental registration”. The facilities that are exempt from this environmental registration are already specified in Article 32 and Annex XVI of Decree 08/2022/ND-CP, and the new Decree adds the following facilities to this exemption list:
- Facilities regularly generating less than 20 kg/month or 240 kg/year of hazardous waste
- Facilities regularly generating less than 100 kg/month or 1,200 kg/year of general industrial solid waste
- Facilities regularly generating less than 300 kg/day of domestic solid waste
- Facilities treating 5 m3/day of wastewater and emitting less than 50 m3/hour of exhaust gas.
Restrictions on imports of scrap for production raw materials
Under the new Decree, businesses that directly import scrap as production raw materials may only import scrap equivalent to 80% of their required material quantity on and after the effective date of this Decree (January 5, 2025). The remaining quantity must be procured domestically within Vietnam.
The Vietnamese government has also revised the list of scrap that can be imported as production raw materials (currently pursuant to the Prime Minister’s Decision 13/2023/QD-TTg) and has also indicated that it will no longer permit imports from abroad for scrap that can be supplied domestically.
The original text of this Decree can be downloaded from the following URL
https://vanban.chinhphu.vn/?pageid=27160&docid=212284&classid=1
