Shifting sands: illegal VN sales to Singapore
Quite a few Vietnamese companies are taking advantage of sand dredging privileges authorised by the Government to rake in huge illegal profits, according to an expose by the Tuổi Trẻ (Youth) newspaper. The investigative series, entitled “Tracing Vietnamese sand drain to Singapore”, reported that at the end of 2009, the Vietnamese Government banned sand exports but in 2013 the regulation was loosened, allowing a list of enterprises to export saline sand dredged from the river and sea beds of their own projects to recoup their investments. The decision created favourable conditions for sand to be shipped in large quantities to the city-state of Singapore.
