A draft mining plan for bauxite was approved by the
Vietnamese government in 2007.
Vinacomin, a Vietnamese mining company, has laid out a plan for 6 bauxite mining projects covering over 1800 square kilometers in Vietnam's mountainous Central Highlands. The first two processing plants for the plan have been contracted to
Chalco, a Chinese mining company. The Nhan Co project in
Đắk Nông Province and the Tan Rai complex in
Lâm Đồng Province are expected to produce 600,000 tons of
alumina per year. Vietnam has indicated that it needs about $15.6 billion to invest in major bauxite and alumina refining projects by 2025. Prime Minister
Nguyễn Tấn Dũng has approved several large mining projects for the Central Highlands, asserting that bauxite exploitation is "a major policy of the party and the state." The mining plans have met with strong criticism from scientists, environmentalists and Vietnam's general population. Forests and agricultural land used by coffee and tea farmers are threatened by the plans and opponents have raised concerns about the toxic waste
red mud generated through the refinement of bauxite. Vietnamese general
Võ Nguyên Giáp has offered strong criticism of the plans, saying that a 1980s study led to experts advising against mining due to severe ecological damage. In March 2010,
Google indicated that malicious software targeting Vietnamese opponents of bauxite mining had infected potentially tens of thousands of users. The
malware was used in
denial-of-service attacks against dissenting political blogs and installed itself after users downloaded altered
Vietnamese language software. The malware was also used to spy on users. The cyber attacks appeared to be a politically motivated attack, according to George Kurtz of
McAfee. Vietnamese Foreign Ministry Spokesperson Nguyen Phuong Nga claimed such comments were groundless. In November 2010,
Nguyen Tan Dung, the prime minister of Vietnam, announced that Vietnam's bauxite deposits might total 11,000 Mt; this would be the largest in the world. ==Companies involved==