The Mon State Government has directed any investing companies in Mon State to report on their Environmental Management Program (EMP), in order to provide transparency and minimize negative impacts on the environment.
The investing companies can only start implementing projects after receiving approvals for Initial Environment Examination (IEE), Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA), and Social Impact Assessment (SIA), which will be developed and applied depending on the size and nature of the company’s project, according to the government’s instruction.
“Whatever the project is, whether it will have minimal or zero impact on the environment, employers must develop and implement an EMP. We have informed respective company officials that work will only proceed after implementing an EMP,” said Dr. Min Kyi Win, minister of Natural Resource and Environmental Conservation.
Dr. Min Kyi Win added that the Mon State Government discovered that most companies investing in the state failed to provide an EIA and were so far only directed to develop EIAs based on their projects.
However, most companies have yet to receive approvals from the union government, even though they have applied for EIA approval.
“The Union Government has informed us on four points. We are doing as directed. We have already submitted the environmental report. We applied for EIA, SIA, and EMP report approval from Myanmar Investment Commission in last July. However, we have not received them yet,” said U Aung Htet Htay, Director of Long Life Aggregate Mining Co., Ltd.
At the second regular session of the Mon State Hluttaw conference, on December 13, 2016, in response to a question from Hluttaw representative Daw Khaing Khaing Leh, Minister Dr. Min Kyi Win stated that there were 26 projects in Mon State that were negatively impacting the environment and have yet to complete an IEE.
According to the Mon State Government, in 2016, government officials, led by the minister of Natural Resource and Environment Conservation, inspected 330 investing companies’ projects and also administered site visits to factories over 24 times, 4 times to gold mining projects, 82 times to stone quarry project sites, 19 times to the hotel industry and 188 times to brick production sites.
