From Beijing’s experience, Viet Nam to tighten control over air pollution

On November 28, on the sidelines of the high-level meeting of Minister Agriculture and Environment Tran Duc Thang with Beijing Mayor Yin Yong, Director General of the Department of Environment Hoang Van Thuc spoke with reporters about cooperation orientations and experience to control air quality that Viet Nam can learn from China.

Director General Hoang Van Thuc said Beijing, the capital of China, is a city that possesses many outstanding socio-economic development achievements. Among them, the environment sector, especially air quality control, is considered a notably remarkable highlight. For more than 20 years, Beijing has implemented a series of comprehensive, synchronized solutions, helping significantly improve the quality of the living environment.

Air pollution cannot be addressed within 'administrative boundaries'

“From Beijing’s experience, Viet Nam can refer to and apply several basic groups of solutions,” Mr. Thuc emphasized.

The first solution, according to Director General Hoang Van Thuc, is to strictly control all sources of air pollution. In Beijing, emissions from transport, industry, construction, and even household activities are all managed very strictly, consistently, and under a unified procedure.

The second solution is to recognize air pollution as a cross-regional issue that cannot be handled within the scope of a single locality. For many years, Beijing has closely coordinated with Hebei Province and Tianjin City in air quality control.

From this experience, Mr. Thuc believes that Ha Noi also needs to build inter-sectoral and inter-regional coordination mechanisms with surrounding provinces such as Ninh Binh, Hung Yen, and Thai Nguyen to ensure effective monitoring and comprehensive management.

The third solution is relocating heavily polluting facilities out of the inner city. Beijing has implemented this very decisively, moving many large industrial plants to more distant areas, mainly to Hebei Province, to serve new urban planning.

“Viet Nam already has plans to relocate polluting facilities out of urban centers. In the coming time, the Ministry will work with localities to implement this policy more thoroughly,” Mr. Thuc said.

The fourth solution focuses on strengthening inspections, monitoring, and investing in environmental-monitoring technology. Beijing currently has a satellite observation system and a dense network of continuous automatic monitoring stations. Alongside the standard stations, air-quality sensor networks are widely deployed, allowing authorities to track daily pollution developments, detect unusual changes in time, and address problems directly at the source.

Mayor Yin Yong shared in last meeting, while Beijing’s growth rate had previously been comparable to that of other major cities, in the past three years it has consistently been 0.2% higher. He attributed this to the improvement in environmental quality, which has attracted industries well-suited to the capital.

Bilateral cooperation orientations in the coming period

According to Director General Hoang Van Thuc, during this working trip, the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment identifies environmental cooperation with China as a long-term priority. Minister Tran Duc Thang discussed and agreed on the priority contents.

In the next phase, the two sides will focus on sharing and learning experiences in controlling air quality in major cities such as Beijing. Viet Nam will study and apply them appropriately to practical conditions in domestic provinces and cities.

To combat desertification, Beijing has organized extensive afforestation projects, located only a few dozen kilometers from the desert belt. Over ten years, newly planted forests cover 1,600 km², or 10% of Beijing’s total area. The city’s green coverage rate now reaches 50%, earning it the title of “Forest city of the region,” even in the northern part of the country. Beijing residents highly appreciate the city’s ecological and environmental governance, reflected in measurable improvements in air quality, water quality, waste management, and urban greening. 

In addition, cooperation will also expand to areas such as monitoring air pollution with advanced technology, treating river and lake pollution, and managing solid waste. These are all contents currently included in the exchange and cooperation program between the Vietnam Ministry of Agriculture and Environment along with China Ministry of Ecology and Environment.