Vietnam opened its domestic carbon trading exchange on 29 June 2026, a formal activation of the country’s emissions trading infrastructure that coincided with a two-day government-organised workshop for industries under mandatory coverage. The Department of Climate Change, operating under the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment, convened the event to walk thermal power generators, steel producers, and cement manufacturers through greenhouse gas (GHG) inventory procedures, emissions calculation methods, and the national online management system they must operate ahead of coming reporting deadlines.
The 2025-2026 pilot scheme targets 110 industrial facilities: 34 thermal power plants, 25 steel producers, and 51 cement manufacturers, all designated under Prime Minister’s Decision 13/2024/QĐ-TTg. Two further regulatory instruments issued in early 2026 gave the quota framework concrete form — Decision 263/QĐ-TTg (9 February 2026) set the aggregate pilot GHG emission cap, and Ministry Decision 699/QĐ-BNNMT (27 February 2026) allocated allowances to individual facilities across the three sectors. All covered entities must complete their second national GHG inventory submission by March 2027, and workshop sessions provided hands-on system training aimed specifically at that reporting cycle.
A JICA-funded technical cooperation project, SIM-NDC, running 2025-2029, is supporting Vietnam’s NDC implementation with a focus on MRV infrastructure and emissions-reduction capacity in power, steel, and cement. Akiko Ishii, JICA Vietnam’s GHG reduction planning specialist, told workshop participants that companies producing lower-emission products gain a tangible competitive advantage and can open new customer and partnership opportunities — reframing decarbonisation as a revenue driver rather than a compliance cost. The Department of Climate Change echoed that framing, stressing that rigorous facility-level inventory data is the indispensable foundation for a credible domestic trading mechanism and a prerequisite for future interoperability with international carbon markets.
Carbon Market Context
- Vietnam’s domestic carbon exchange launch on 29 June 2026 — bringing thermal power, steel, and cement under a formal allowance-allocation framework for the first time — represents a meaningful compliance-market activation for Southeast Asia; the quality of emissions data produced through the March 2027 inventory cycle will be an early public test of whether the MRV infrastructure being built under SIM-NDC (JICA, 2025-2029) can support a credible, internationally connectable trading system.
Source
- Biến gánh nặng phát thải carbon thành lợi thế cạnh tranhVnEconomy — Kinh tế xanh (carbon), published 2026-06-30