Shire Oak International’s representative, Mr. Mark Shorrock has a chance to express our voice in the January edition of Vietnam Economic Times. This edition’s topic is about how the recovery will take shape in 2022 after 2 years hit hard by COVID-19.

Discussing the opportunities of the renewable energy industry in general and Shire Oak International in particular, Mr. Mark Shorrock shared:

“The barrier for foreign investors has been the lockdown, so they couldn’t make any moves or initiatives. The workforce all went home, which led to labor shortages. As long as another lockdown doesn’t happen and Vietnam follows the rest of the world in enabling production, there will be no barriers for foreign investors.
At the COP26 gathering in Glasgow, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh announced a desire for a green future for Vietnam and a 100-per-cent zero-carbon economy. This is an enormous signal for a scale-up of Vietnam’s economic activities, driven by the fact that it decided to stop its dependence on coal and other fossil fuels. In all Western nations, there is a leapfrogging in going straight to a renewable energy-powered economy. Thus, as long as the Ministry of Industry and Trade and Electricity of Vietnam (EVN) is obliged to follow the Prime Minister’s announcement at COP26, this is a very exciting time with investment opportunities for foreign investors.

I think Vietnamese businesses underestimate how unattractive they are having factories powered by coal, and how attractive they would be having factories powered by the sun and the wind. Vietnam is blessed in being able to offer renewable energy-powered factories and needs to grasp that opportunity.
The first opportunity for Shire Oak International is to finance and develop solar power systems at many manufacturing zones. Our vision is that every tenant and factory owner here in Vietnam can power their factories during the day with solar power.
The second opportunity is to scale up the direct power purchase capability here so that wind farms and solar farms, aside from rooftop solar systems, can power factories. These transitions could be a bold statement to end coltan dependence now. There is also an economic opportunity to produce the goods that make the renewable energy economy towers for wind turbines, solar panels, cables, mounting systems, wind blades, wind cells, etc.
If Vietnam is going to turn the corner and set an ambitious goal of 6,000 MW of renewable energy per year, it will create up to 80 billion new economic activities in replacing or displacing coal with rooftop solar.
Thus, this is a huge transition and where Vietnam can become famous on the world map in terms of grasping the recovery and turning it into a green reboot, following the Prime Minister’s bold and foresightful announcement at COP26.”