The paper industry and all kinds of misconceptions - a fair look is needed

Recently, at the Workshop on Policy Solutions for Sustainable Development of the Paper Industry in Vietnam, representatives of state agencies, experts and businesses also discussed to provide an objective perspective, more neutral and complete - "expose" unqualified views and find a common voice, ensuring the stable and comprehensive development of the industry.

"Don't just talk about paper is environmental pollution"

Speaking at the workshop, Mr. Nguyen Van Hien, General Director of Viet Tri Paper worried: "I think we have not had a voice in the paper industry for a long time, so there are a lot of papers, Many comments about the paper industry are very difficult for us to hear. When it comes to the environment, when it comes to paper, pollution is not contributing to the state."

Mr. Nguyen Van Hien expects that the leaders of the Paper Association need to be more vocal in the Decrees and policies related to the industry.

Meanwhile, in the history of the growth of Vietnam's industries, the paper industry has developed strongly with an average growth rate of 11% in the period 2000-2007 and 16% in the period from 2007 to 2017. In life, paper is an essential product and a manufacturing industry that plays an important role, making a significant contribution to Vietnam's economic development. With the promotion of production development, the industry creates jobs for tens of thousands of workers at manufacturing enterprises, and at the same time resonates to develop other economic sectors: optimizing the large volume of timber planted by forestry, greening bare land and supporting forest growers; creating favorable conditions for the development of processing industries. For society, the paper industry provides many products for diverse purposes: social and cultural activities, educational activities or production, research and supply of many products to consumers.

As expected, Vietnam's paper demand in the coming time will grow by 8-10%/year, annually Vietnam still has to import nearly 2 million tons of paper for consumer use and production. Particularly for packaging paper, the demand for packaging paper for domestic consumption and export products has a huge growth, so the increase in production capacity for packaging paper still has a lot of potential for development. With significant demand and diverse roles in the economy, the paper industry's production is expected to contribute about 1.5% of GDP, and export turnover is expected to reach over 1 billion USD.

The demand for packaging paper products – products using raw materials from mixed paper is increasing, specifically each year increasing by up to 15%

Mr. Patrick Chung, General Director of Lee&Man Paper Company, representing FDI enterprises also spoke. He affirmed that the paper industry, and all its products, is not an industry that causes environmental pollution. "In Vietnam, we have about 300 companies, including small and medium-sized companies, companies of FDI enterprises and I am sure that none of those 300 companies deliberately want to pollute tissue i school because we came here to seriously invest in business and bring profits."

Mr. Dau Anh Tuan, Head of Legal Department, Chamber of Commerce and
Vietnam Industry also affirmed that for businesses doing decent business, they will certainly comply with all provisions of the law when operating, especially environmental regulations because they have invested seriously everyone wants to stick with them for a long time and think about the general development of the country.

"Think of recycled paper as a raw material, not a scrap"

Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Sang - Chairman of the Vietnam Packaging Association expressed his desire that recycled paper should be considered as a raw material rather than scrap, so that it can be developed and approached in accordance with the inherent potential of "Recycled paper, if we treat it as scrap, we will treat it as scrap; and if we consider it as a raw material, we will treat it as a raw material."

The use of recycled paper as a raw material brings many benefits to businesses and society such as reducing resource exploitation and deforestation. Particularly for businesses, taking advantage of production helps reduce costs due to low prices, minimizing the cost of treatment compared to emissions into the environment. Therefore, in industrial production, not only the paper industry but many industries have been using recycled paper in production.

Moreover, currently, the domestic supply of recycled paper cannot meet the production needs of enterprises, leading to the need to import large quantities to serve domestic production. According to preliminary estimates, the paper collection rate in Vietnam is only below the world average, about less than 40% before being classified and processed. Commenting on this fact, Mr. Phan Chi Dung - Former Director of the Department of Light Industry of the Ministry of Industry and Trade shared: "70% of Vietnam's paper output is produced from scrap paper. Of which, only nearly 40% is collected domestically, the rest must be imported. For professional paper recycling enterprises, with good recycling capacity like foreign-invested enterprises, they are in dire need of paper raw materials and it is clear that importing is a mandatory solution in the context of domestic sufficient production materials".

"The paper industry is an economic sector with a natural conformity with the circular economy model, in which, the recycling of raw materials is highly focused" – Mr. Phan Chi Dung analyzed

"With the development of the industry, recycled paper is a very important source of raw materials and it is time to change the perspective, this is not scrap but this is an important raw material of production. And the paper industry itself also meets the standards of circular economy and environmental protection," Mr. Dau Anh Tuan added.

Experts and businesses find solutions together

At the workshop, experts also agreed that it is necessary to tighten the management of imported scrap at this time, especially when in the past time there have been a number of businesses taking advantage of loopholes in the management of importing scrap for production to import "garbage" and o Vietnam, causing environmental pollution. However, the Government's tightening of management needs to have an economic impact assessment and a roadmap, avoiding suddenly causing businesses to fall into a passive position, and at the same time will also cause chain reactions to a chain of companiesother industries such as the packaging industry, the export industry, etc. "Policy changes, especially those that affect many businesses, need to have an impact assessment and a roadmap" – Mr. Pham Dinh Thuong, a legal expert, proposed. Meanwhile, Mr. Hoang Trung Son said that there needs to be a dialogue between state management agencies and the business community to have "understanding", from which regulations can be adjusted more reasonably.

The workshop also gave objective calculations showing the level of damage of enterprises when they are not allowed to import mixed waste paper for production

According to Mr. Dau Anh Tuan, management if it is merely closing and keeping prejudices, it is very extreme and also delays development a lot. It is necessary to screen businesses that do business properly, businesses that have not complied well and must also have reasonable standards. Moreover, Vietnam needs to refer to the policies of other countries to manage the import of scrap paper, compare it with the economic development situation and demand in Vietnam to come up with policies in line with international practices. It is absolutely necessary for relevant State agencies to consult businesses to have a more objective view to gradually form and complete this legal framework

Source: dantri.com.vn