Environmental impact assessments required for major construction

• 6 July 2019
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The Ministry of Environment has affirmed that all major construction projects are required to conduct environmental impact assessments (EIA) before requesting a construction permit license from the Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction.

According to the Ministry of Environment, before issuing construction permit licenses, some construction projects need to have the results of the environmental impact assessment included.

The Ministry of Environment has also pointed out that constructions requiring an EIA are infrastructure-related developments such as urban development, industrial construction and bridges with its capacity over 30 tons.

For buildings with a height of over 12 floors or up to 8,000 metres, restaurants with over 500 seats construction of hotels with more than 60 rooms, construction of beach hotels with over 40 rooms, construction of railway longer than 100km, construction of ports of all sizes, and airport facility construction shall be subject to apply for an environmental impact assessment.

H.E. Neth Pheaktra, Secretary of State and spokesperson for the Ministry of Environment, said in a press conference on Friday that the environmental impact assessment is conducted jointly by an inter-ministerial body.

“In the procedures of EIA, the company shall request for an EIA and the requesting company shall have consulting firm which has a duty to prepare the EIA and evaluation for the requesting company, and then submit the result to the Ministry of Environment’s EIA department,” H.E. Neth Pheaktra said.

He added that before submitting the report of the requesting company and to give time to check and approve it, the Ministry of Environment’s EIA team does additional research on the project to verify the reports of the consulting firm which signals the end of the EIA process.