Formosa claims responsibility for environmental breakdown in central coast

 >>> Gov’t to organize press conference on causes of mass fish deaths

Minister-Chairman of the Government Office Mai Tien Dung told the news at the international press conference on Thursday.

The company pledged to make a public apology to the Government and people of Viet Nam, offer US$500 million in compensation for economic damages and marine environmental repair, Mr. Dung said.

It also committed to fully overcoming the shortcomings of its waste treatment system in order to prevent the recurrence of the incident in the future and coordinating with Vietnamese ministries and central localities to design synchronous measures to avoid the repeats of similar environmental breakdowns, he added.

In a video delivered at the press conference, Chen Yuan-Cheng , President of the Hung Nghiep Formosa Ha Tinh Steel Co. Ltd said that during “the test runs as well as test results from the research and analysis of the inter-disciplinary inspection team under the direction of the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment which includes Vietnamese and international scientists have all come to conclusion that incidents within the operation of our factory have caused the environmental incident that led to the recent mass deaths of fish off the coast of Viet Nam’s four central provinces.”

President Chen explained that the test runs were conducted by sub-contractors whom his company hired and signed contracts with.

“Our company accepts full responsibility for the incidents and would like to express our sincere apologies to the people of Viet Nam,  especially the people of the four provinces,” said President Chen.

He also expressed apologies to the Party, State, National Assembly, Government, and Prime Minster of Viet Nam for causing the recent environmental incidents, gravely impacting the lives, production and occupation of the local residents as well as the marine environment./.

By Hai Minh