Vietnam wants to increase coal imports from Laos

Vietnam wants to increase coal imports from Laos to meet domestic consumption needs, by initiating the process of building a trade agreement on coal trading cooperation with this country.

Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Hong Dien at the meeting to deploy the development of a trade agreement on coal trading cooperation with Laos.

On the morning of August 27, Minister of Industry and Trade Nguyen Hong Dien chaired a working session with Groups and Corporations in the energy and mineral sectors... to discuss cooperation in coal trading with Laos.

In recent times, corporations and enterprises have made efforts to import coal from Laos to Vietnam according to the Intergovernmental Agreement and the Government's direction. However, the coal import volume so far is still modest, not commensurate with the needs and potential of the two countries.

In order to remove difficulties and obstacles, promote coal trade cooperation between the two countries in accordance with the direction of the Government leaders, Minister Nguyen Hong Dien requested that units build a coal trade cooperation agreement with Laos.

To have a basis for building a Cooperation Agreement, the Minister requested that functional units, Groups, and Corporations have a comprehensive assessment report on the coal trading needs between the two countries and the conditions to ensure smooth implementation in accordance with regulations.

The content of the Agreement focuses on three main groups of issues: import volume that can be adjusted according to actual demand; purchase and sale methods, and allocation of coal import volume from Laos to key Corporations and General Companies.

The Department of Oil, Gas and Coal is the focal point to urgently collect opinions from relevant ministries, branches and localities to promptly complete the Draft Agreement to submit to the Government, ensuring the quality and progress assigned.

Although Laos has large coal reserves that Vietnam can import, trade between the two sides still has limitations. The Oil, Gas and Coal Department said that recently, cooperation in coal trading with Laos has still encountered many difficulties.

The reason is that limited transport infrastructure and high transportation costs lead to high prices of imported coal from Laos, which cannot compete with domestically produced coal or imported coal from other countries....

The Ministry of Industry and Trade hopes that the implementation of the Coal Trading Cooperation Agreement with Laos will ensure Vietnam has a stable coal supply.

In July this year, the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Lao Ministry of Energy and Mines signed a Memorandum of Understanding on cooperation in the coal sector for five years. Accordingly, Laos plans to export about 20 million tons of coal per year to Vietnam, depending on demand and actual market conditions.

To ensure sufficient coal supply for electricity production in 2024, investors of coal-fired thermal power plants are assigned the responsibility of arranging 74.307 million tons of coal, of which the plants are designed to use about 26.1 million tons of imported coal.

According to statistics from the General Department of Customs, Vietnam's coal imports of all kinds in 2023 will reach more than 51 million tons, equivalent to more than 7.1 billion USD, an increase of 61.4% in volume and 0.7% in value compared to 2022.

Of which, Australia is the largest coal supplier to our country with an import volume of 19.9 million tons (accounting for 38% of total import volume) with a value of 3.3 billion USD, Indonesia is the second largest coal supplier to Vietnam with about 19.3 million tons with a turnover of about 2.1 billion USD, the third is Russia with 4.4 million tons, a turnover of about 847.6 million USD.

In the period 2025 - 2030, Vietnam has an import demand of about 60 - 100 million tons/year.

Source: https://baodautu.vn/viet-nam-muon-tang-nhap-than-tu-lao-d223432.html