​On January 6, 2025, the Government issued Decree No.05/2025/ND-CP amending and supplementing a number of articles of Decree No.08/2022/ND-CP dated January 10, 2022 of the Government detailing a number of articles of the Law on Environmental Protection. 

Decree No.05/2025/ND-CP dated January 6, 2025 of the Government consists of 6 Articles to amend and supplement a number of articles of Decree No. 08/2022/ND-CP dated January 10, 2022 of the Government, thereby aiming to reform administrative procedures for people and businesses by reducing the number of subjects required to carry out administrative procedures in the environmental field; Review and promote decentralization and delegation of authority to localities to handle a number of environmental administrative procedures under the authority of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment and amend to facilitate the implementation of new regulations and policies on environmental protection. This Decree takes effect from the date of signing.

In particular, Decree No. 05/2025/ND-CP has added 01 article (Article 26a) stipulating the decentralization of the authority to appraise environmental impact assessment reports of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment to the People's Committees of the Provincial level. Specifically, there are 07 groups of projects that are decentralized:

(1) Public investment projects not under the authority to decide and approve investment policies of the National Assembly and the Prime Minister, except for projects providing waste recycling and treatment services;

(2) Livestock breeding projects;

(3) Investment projects in the business of slaughterhouses for livestock and poultry;

(4) Projects are classified only according to the criteria requiring conversion of land use purposes for rice cultivation from 02 crops or more;

(5) Projects are classified only according to the criteria requiring conversion of land use purposes, land with water surface of nature reserves, natural heritages, biosphere reserves, important wetlands, special-use forests, protective forests, land with natural forests and not under the authority to decide and approve investment policies of the National Assembly, the Prime Minister;

(6) Investment projects in concentrated production, business and service areas, industrial clusters, excluding: Projects providing hazardous waste treatment services; projects importing scrap from abroad as production materials; other projects in the type of production, business and service with a high risk of causing environmental pollution with a large capacity specified in column (3) Appendix II of the Decree; Expansion investment projects of operating establishments exempted from connection according to the provisions of law with wastewater flow subject to periodic monitoring or higher;

(7) Hydropower projects not under the authority of the National Assembly and the Prime Minister to decide and approve investment policies.

The Decree also stipulates the corresponding decentralization of the authority to grant environmental permits to localities in corresponding cases where the Ministry has approved the results of the appraisal of environmental impact assessment reports or has granted environmental licenses.

The decentralization and delegation of authority to localities will create local initiative in the process of attracting investment or deciding on investment; proactively control environmental issues in the area; contribute to unlocking local resources in accordance with the direction of the Prime Minister in the recent past./.

For details: ​​NĐ 05.pdf