"Vietnam needs to create awareness among its consumers and citizens groups on the need to choose ozone-safe products," Jordan Ryan, resident representative of the UNDP in Vietnam, said Tuesday.

"Steps are needed to develop the appropriate legal framework to prohibit use of CFC's" (chlorofluorocarbons).

The statement was made to mark the 16th anniversary of the Montreal protocol, drawn-up in 1987 to reduce ozone-depleting substances.

"We should not be blinded by complacency as our quest is not over yet. We still face many challenges. The illegal trading of ozone-depleting substances... (is) among them and require your full attention as policy makers and enforcers of the law," he said to Vietnamese officials.

"Voluntary agreements with industry, appropriate taxes on CFCs and subsidies to CFC-free technologies are some of the measures that Vietnam can take to fast phase out CFCs," Ryan added.

In August 2002, a UN-backed study said an "Asian Brown Cloud" -- a vast haze of pollution stretching across South Asia -- was damaging agriculture, modifying rainfall patterns and endangering the population.

Pollution has become a mounting problem with the huge growth of Vietnam's big cities in recent years. Industrial firms, as in many other developing countries, do not respect international standards environment regulations.

Chemicals, textiles and agro-foodstuffs companies do not use purification systems on their emissions, despite the adoption in 1994 of a law on the environment.

The growing number of motorcycles (about over million) and cars (over 530,000 four-wheel vehicles) have significantly worsened the situation as well as accelerating rural emigration.

TERRA.WIRE