Manufacturing firms in Vietnam are not prioritising energy conservation due to electricity prices that are too low, Nguyen Quoc Dung, Head of Business Department of Vietnam Electricity Group, told a seminar earlier this week. The manufacturing sector is responsible for about 51 percent of Vietnam’s electricity consumption, according to the executive.
Of note, retail electricity prices in Vietnam are regulated and price rises are not all that common and this has led to power often being sold at below cost price. This has then had a carry over effect in that investment by the state power provider into more power generation and grid infrastructure has been insufficient resulting in power shortages that were estimated to have cost Vietnam’s economy US$1.4 billion last year.