From January 1 next year, the new Plant Protection andQuarantine Law (the Law) will take effect, superseding the 2001 Ordinance.
The 77-article Law provides the prevention and control oforganisms harmful to vegetation, plant quarantine and management of pesticides.The Law applies to domestic and foreign organizations and individuals involvedin plant protection and quarantine activities in Vietnam.
The Law specifies the State’s policies on plant protectionand quarantine activities. Accordingly, the State will support the building ofareas free of harmful organisms; and create and develop professionalorganizations to provide plant protection services associated with agriculturaltechnical services to serve large-scale agricultural production. The State willalso encourage the building of industrial parks producing pesticides andsystems for collecting and treating pesticides and used pesticide packagings;and the manufacture and use of pesticide packagings made from recyclablematerials.
Prevention and control of harmful organisms
Requirements on prevention and control of harmful organismsare provided in Article 14.
Vegetation owners must monitor to timely detect harmfulorganisms and apply appropriate measures to effectively and safely prevent andcontrol organisms harmful to vegetation, not letting them spread. Whendetecting exotic harmful organisms or harmful organisms likely to cause seriousdamage, they must immediately report to the nearest commune-level People’sCommittee or specialized plant protection and quarantine agency.
Under Article 17, plantpests must be announced when harmful organisms break out and are likely torapidly spread on large areas and cause serious damage to vegetation; whendetecting exotic harmful organisms or control objects which are likely to causeserious damage to vegetation; or when detecting that plant quarantine objectsare penetrating into the Vietnamese territory and likely to spread.Provincial-level People’s Committee chairpersons may decide to announce pestsin localities in the first case. The Minister of Agriculture and RuralDevelopment may decide to announce pests in the first case when the pests arelikely to spread and cause serious damage in two or more provinces, and in theremaining two cases. When plant pests have been put under control and are nolonger likely to cause serious damage, persons competent to announce pests mayannounce that pests are over.
Plant quarantine
As required by the Law, quarantine must be conducted onarticles subject to quarantine upon their import, export or transit and thosesubject to domestic quarantine under the Law, except cases eligible forquarantine exemption under regulations of the Minister of Agriculture and RuralDevelopment.
In each period, the Minister of Agriculture and RuralDevelopment will promulgate a list of articles subject to quarantine, a list ofarticles subject to quarantine and subject to pest risk analysis before beingimported into Vietnam, a list of plant quarantine objects and a list of controlobjects.
Articles subject to quarantine must be banned from export orimport if imported articles are identified as highly likely to carry plantquarantine objects which penetrate, spread and threaten domestic agriculturalproduction or national food security and seriously affect Vietnam’s export orexported articles fail to satisfy the plant quarantine requirements ofimporting countries and are likely to lose export markets. The articles maycontinue to be exported or imported only after the above risks are remedied.
International cooperation
Under Article 11,international cooperation on plant protection and quarantine will focus onscientific research, technology transfer, technical training, experiencesharing and information exchange in the prevention and control of harmfulorganisms, plant quarantine and pesticides.
The central-levelplant protection and quarantine agency will act as the focal point inexchanging information on plant protection, plant quarantine and pesticides ininternational cooperation activities.
Prohibited acts
Prohibited acts are listed in Article 13, including:
- Applying plant protection and quarantine measures incontravention of the Law;
- Failing to apply orintentionally applying pest control measures in an improper manner;
- Importing, producing, transporting, storing or trading inplants infested with harmful organisms or using plant varieties infested withharmful organisms on the list of plant quarantine objects or the list ofcontrol objects, which have not yet been treated;
- Dispersing harmfulorganisms;
- Carrying soil orimporting harmful organisms into Vietnam, or rearing harmful organisms on alarge scale, unless such is approved in writing by the Minister of Agricultureand Rural Development;
- Producing,importing, trading in or using pesticides on the list of pesticides banned fromuse in Vietnam; pesticides which are counterfeit or of unclear origin, or have expired;or pesticides outside the list of pesticides permitted for use in Vietnam,except the cases specified in Clause 2, Article 67 of the Law;
- Advertising pesticides on the list of pesticides bannedfrom use in Vietnam or pesticides outside the list of pesticides permitted foruse in Vietnam, or advertising pesticides in contravention of the pesticideregistration certificates; and
- Producing, trading in, using, preserving, transporting,discarding, collecting or treating pesticides and pesticide packagings incontravention of the Law.
To enforce the Law, two decrees are expected will be issuedthis year.-
