Mr. Nguyen Van Tai, Director of the Ministry’s Institute of Strategy and Policy on Natural Resources and Environment, and Mr. Peter Witterauf – CEO of Hanns-Seidel Foundation signed the cooperation agreement

On the morning of 3/4, in Hanoi, Deputy Minister of Natural Resources and Environment Tran Hong Ha has met Mr. Peter Witterauf - CEO of Hanns-Seidel Foundation (HSF - Germany). At the meeting, Mr. Nguyen Van Tai – Director of the Ministry’s Institute of Strategy and Policy on Natural Resources and Environment and Mr. Peter Witterauf - CEO of Hanns-Seidel Foundation signed a cooperation agreement for the period 2014-2016.

Attendants of the meeting and signing ceremony were the representatives of units under the Ministry: Institute of Strategy and Policy on Natural Resources and Environment, Department of International Cooperation, Department of Meteorology, Hydrology and Climate Change, Vietnam Environment Administration and the representatives of HSF office in Vietnam.

At the meeting, Deputy Minister Tran Hong Ha expressed his delight to met and work with CEO – Mr. Peter Witterauf and his colleagues of Hanns-Seidel Foundation. Deputy Minister Tran Hong Ha provided an overview of our resources, environment that is quite complicated.

The Deputy Minister said that Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment was the multi-sectoral, multi-disciplinary agency, including land resources, water resources, minerals, hydrometeorology, climate change, sea - islands, remote sensing...

The system of legal documents on Natural Resources & Environment was completed and continually updated to ensure the management of the State associated with the actual situation. In particular, in the field of land resource management, the Government has issued a revised Land Law. Accordingly, the key task is to build law-guiding documents, in order to improve the policies and laws on land.

Issues of land management are dissonance between land resource mobilization for infrastructure development and People’s land ownership. This is the cause of many complaints related to land acquisition, compensation, valuation...

Besides, the environment remains a major challenge of Vietnam on sustainable development journey. Currently, Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment is amending the Environmental Protection Act 2005. In fact, the environment in our country is facing with pollution of water, soil, air. Meanwhile, State planning, disposal of solid waste at the localities is not well; the technology is still poor. Moreover, Vietnam is also a place with high biodiversity in the world. However, the rates of forests, ecosystems, plants and animals are declining sharply. This situation requires the participation of society and the support of organizations inside and outside the country.

The “hot” issue of Vietnam currently is climate change (CC). Deputy Minister Tran Hong Ha said Vietnam was one of five countries vulnerable to the effects of climate change seriously. The temperature rise at the end of the 21^st century will bring great threats to the Mekong River Delta. In addition, storms will increase in amount and intensity, causing damage from 1 - 3% of GDP.

As estimated, if there is no timely response measure, the damage will increase up to 10% of GDP / year. Therefore, in order to combat CC, the focused and priority task of Vietnam currently is to mobilize resources for the construction of coping works such as sea dykes, river dykes, water reservoirs, restoration of mangroves, reforestation for watershed protection and flood prevention...

On the other hand, Vietnam's economic paradigm is shifting from an economy based on resource extraction and inefficient, saving use of natural resources to a green economy to ensure sustainable development.

Hydrometeorology is a field receiving more and more attention from the State and community. However, according to Deputy Minister Tran Hong Ha, facilities to serve this work are still backward.

Marine economy accounts for 30-40% of GDP so that sea and island areas should be managed well in the future. Currently, Vietnam has Law of the Sea, Law of Resources & Environment of the Sea and Island, which are still in the process of building. Dispute between the countries in the East Sea is an issue yet to be resolved.

In the field of geology - minerals, Deputy Minister Tran Hong Ha emphasized that minerals of Vietnam are diverse in categories. However, the current biggest difficulty is the investigation and exploration. "Vietnam is very open with the international partners working together to investigate, explore with the condition that they must have good will, capacity and technology", said the Deputy Minister.

Regarding the management of water resources, the Deputy Minister announced that this was a vital issue in Vietnam. 60% of water in Vietnam came from overseas, so it posed many risks to the security of water resources. Currently, water resources are exploited extensively to build hydroelectric plant. Nevertheless, this has created conflicts of water uses between upstream and downstream, between the interests of hydropower and the needs of people's lives.

Geodesy and Cartography is a field that Ministry of Natural Resources & Environment performs relatively well. In addition, remote sensing is a new field that requires a lot of investment in physical and technical as well as legal basis for effective management.

According to the status of resource and environment sector, the Deputy Minister proposed collaboration of Hanns-Seidel Foundation, based on mutual benefit. "Germany is a country with strong environmental, nuclear power, renewable energy sectors. Therefore, Vietnam and Germany can cooperate effectively in these fields", said the Deputy Minister.

The delegates photographed together