Huge amount of investment poured into the Vietnamese textile sector, especially over the past year, has started raising environmental concerns, according to Vietnamese media reports. Investment in textile projects began to grow last year, when foreign investors learnt that Vietnam is going to be one of 12 signatories to the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) agreement. So far this year, about $3.5 billion or over 30 per cent of the $11 billion worth of foreign direct investment attracted by Vietnam is for textile and garment projects, according to the data from the Foreign Investment Agency. The new investments include the $660 million textile and garment project of Tukish Hyosung Company in Dong Nai province, the $274 million textile factory of Polytex Far Eastern in Binh Duong province, and the $300 million investment by Hong Kong based Worldon Vietnam for textile and garment project in HCM City. Hong Kong based TAL Group and the Chinese Texhong Group have also registered textile and garment projects in Vietnam. However, this sharp and sudden increase in investments is now beginning to raise environmental concerns. The Ministry of Planning and Investment has warned about the import of outdated energy consuming technologies by foreign investors, and has asked provincial authorities to thoroughly examine projects before issuing licenses to them. The ministry wants to make sure that new projects meet environmental and technological standards, as well as the occupancy rate in industrial zones. In fact, some provinces like Da Nang have already started saying ‘no’ to projects with high environmental risks.
