Lawmakers discuss draft bill on energy

How to make the best use of energy was top on the agenda yesterday, April 15, at the ongoing meeting of the National Assembly Standing Committee, . . .

VnnNews – How to make the best use of energy was top on the agenda yesterday, April 15, at the ongoing meeting of the National Assembly Standing Committee, where participants discussed a draft for the law on efficient and effective energy usage.

Deputies discuss budget reports

Lawmakers debate land, environmental tax policy

Draft environmental tax law circulated

The NA Standing Committee, in discussing a draft law on food safety, agreed to label ‘genetically modified’ on relevant products and materials.

The draft law, which was submitted to the National Assembly (NA) for the first time at the sixth meeting session last October, will be voted for approval at the seventh session in May this year.

The NA Standing Committee, in putting the final touches to the draft law, was making sure that the law’s introduction would help stabilise energy supply together with the efficient and effective use of energy in both production and every day life.

Two chapters and 14 articles have been added to the draft which has been amended to be more practical and rational, according to the head of the NA’s Science-Technology and Environment Committee, Dang Vu Minh.

Viet Nam’s energy has long been used wastefully and if it is used efficiently, the country could save up to 20 per cent each year, said Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Do Huu Hao at yesterday’s meeting where a draft for food safety was also discussed.

The wasteful energy is mostly because of poor awareness and backward technology, according to Hao who gave an example that Viet Nam’s gross domestic production grew by 6 per cent in the first quarter of this year but energy usage increased by 22 per cent.

“Compared to the international standard that sees 1 per cent GDP growth going in line with 1.2-1.5 times higher for energy usage, Viet Nam’s figure is three times,” said Hao.

Participants voiced their concerns on the feasibility of the draft law as the drafting committee had put impractical amendments in six fields that would require a lot more details and further discussion.

“The draft should focus on some specific fields with detailed regulations, especially on sanctions,” said chairman of the NA’s Laws Committee Nguyen Van Thuan who suggested they draft a law simply for the development of renewable energy.

Arguing on the standard for energy efficiency, the participants asked Ministry of Science and Technology, the relevant body, to regulate, introduce and control the maximum energy consumption for all means of transport and energy-propelled equipment every five years.

Hao suggested that for the time being, the Government should introduce standards for the eight groups of vehicles and equipment that use the most energy and work on the rest later. He said the labelling would be done by the producers and manufacturers.

In response to concerns over the bill’s feasibility, Vice Chairman of the National Assembly Uong Chu Luu called on the agreement on the concept of efficient and effective energy usage, especially the principles for energy usage, that are the basis and fundamental orientation for drafting the law and relevant documents.

“The principles on energy usage should be in line with the request for efficiency and savings in production, that would help assure national energy security and sustainable development,” said Luu.

NA Vice Chairman Nguyen Duc Kien agreed that it was difficult to draft the bill which requires a number of additional regulations to encourage people to follow the law and the scope was too big.

“Laws of such kind need to have a lot of sub-laws detailing the regulations,” said Kien, adding that renewable energy usage cannot be fully regulated by one law alone, requiring a lot of sub-laws to go with it.

Food safety

The NA Standing Committee, in discussing a draft law on food safety later yesterday, agreed to label ‘genetically modified’ on relevant products and materials.

The labelling will be based on scientific results of the safety standards of the genetically modified products.

There are two different view points on the management of genetically modified products, according to Thuan.

“Members of the European Union have strict regulations on modified products which are labelled if they contain 0.9 per cent or more of modified ingredients,” said Thuan. “Some countries like Japan, Russia and South Korea label products with between 1-5 per cent of ingredients of such kind.”

But countries like the US, Argentina, Canada, Malaysia and the Philippines do not label genetically modified products, seeing them like all others, according to Thuan.

Viet Nam, which was among the world’s top agricultural exporters, is still a beginner when it comes to applying genetic technology to production, said Thuan.

“We are still experimenting with genetic modification foodstuff production and import most of those kinds of products,” Thuan added in requesting that the Government takes charge of regulating the labelling, including the roadmap for implementation, classification for products and the percentage of ingredients.

Chairwoman of the NA’s Social Affairs Committee Truong Thi Mai also voiced her concerns over the unspecified regulations on the genetically modified foodstuffs in the draft.

“In the near future, Viet Nam would be able to produce a lot of products of this kind and therefore the labelling must be strictly based on scientific results and regulations of those products’ safety levels,” said Mai.

Other participants, however, did not agree with Mai on the labelling based on the scientific results as they said that the long-term effect of each category of those kinds of products on people’s health is yet to be proved. Dang Vu Minh and the chairman of the NA’s External Relations Committee, Nguyen Van Son, both said that as long as there are no laboratories with advanced technology, labelling based on scientific results is not feasible and asked the government to work out proper regulations instead.

Discussing whether to take control of food products from small-scale producers and individuals or from industrial-scale production, Binh requested the drafting committee to clarify the matter.

Around 9.4 million families are farmers, producing and trading foodstuffs on a small scale and there are thousands of companies and enterprises doing business in this field, said Minister of Health Nguyen Quoc Trieu.

To deal with this problem, the draft needs to regulate that all the foodstuff producers and traders have to ensure food safety and strictly follow the authorised agencies’ management regulations, said Trieu.

The government should also encourage food producers and traders to renew their technology and expand their production scale, especially developing and improving the safe food supply system, added the minister.

The draft was also first submitted to the NA last October and will be voted for approval in May.

VietNamNet/Viet Nam News

Tags: Draft Law, Efficient And Effective, Energy Usage, Food Safety, Genetically Modified, Genetically Modified Products, Modified Products, Na Standing Committee, On Scientific Results, Per Cent, Scientific Results, Standing Committee, The Draft, The Draft Law, The Government, The Labelling, The Law, The Na, The National Assembly, Viet Nam, Physics games

PostsComments

Comments

You must be logged in to post a comment.