Scenario: the factory’s monthly industrial park service invoice has seven fee lines, two of which nobody in the finance team can explain the basis of. Park service charges are the second-largest operating cost after land rent, yet they are usually signed on the developer’s template without anyone dissecting their composition. This article analyses each fee group, the calculation mechanics and the tenant’s transparency rights under Decree 35/2022/ND-CP.
Anatomy of the four fee groups
Infrastructure-use fees pay for shared use of the park’s structures: internal roads, pavements, public lighting, storm drainage, landscaping, fencing and perimeter security. The base is usually leased area at a fixed annual unit price — in substance an allocated depreciation-plus-operation charge. Management fees pay for the developer’s operating apparatus: common services management, contractor coordination, park administration. The two are easily blurred — some parks merge them into one “management and infrastructure” line, others split them with overlapping content; when split, the tenant should demand an item allocation table to avoid paying twice. Wastewater treatment fees are output-based: how much the factory discharges, and to what acceptance standard, decides the charge — the only fee that moves with production. The final group is State-priced pass-throughs (electricity, clean water) and optional services (special waste collection, dedicated security) — these must follow actual invoices, not become hiding places for management margin.
Wastewater pricing mechanics — the most technical fee
The wastewater connection point is where law and engineering meet: the factory must pre-treat effluent to the acceptance standard of the park’s centralised treatment system (commonly referencing column B of QCVN 40:2011/BTNMT for industrial wastewater, or the park’s own stricter published connection standard). The fee is charged on volume: direct metering at the discharge point is the gold standard; without a meter, parks apply a conversion factor over water supply (a fixed percentage) — that factor is the classic dispute source, because a factory losing much water to cooling evaporation or product incorporation gets charged treatment fees for water it never discharged. Surcharges arise when influent parameters exceed the acceptance standard (COD, TSS above thresholds), and the park may refuse acceptance where discharge would endanger the central plant’s biological system. The service contract must lock four variables: measurement method and meter-verification rights, the conversion factor and its review conditions, the acceptance standard table, and the surcharge schedule with a warning sequence before surcharges apply.
Price transparency: benchmarking against the notified framework
Decree 35/2022/ND-CP requires the park infrastructure developer to build and notify a price framework — sub-lease land prices, factory prices and infrastructure-use fees — to the park Management Board: the tenant’s official benchmark for framework charges (not output-based fees). Good transparency practice has three layers: at signing, annex the current fee schedule and the notified framework to the contract; at any adjustment, require advance notice with the change’s composition (which input rose, by how much); and periodically reconcile invoices against source metering data instead of merely checking unit price × volume. In negotiation, the tenant should also distinguish sharply: which fees are market service prices (negotiable) and which are State-priced pass-throughs (not negotiable — only the original invoices are verified). Confusing the two wastes negotiating effort and misses the points that truly need control.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are wastewater fees charged by volume (m3) or by pollution load?
Primarily by volume: industrial-zone wastewater fees are usually calculated as the actual discharged volume metered at the connection point (in cubic metres) multiplied by the unit price in the service tariff schedule the developer has notified to the management board under the framework of Decree 35/2022/ND-CP. Pollution load does not replace the volume unit; it operates through two other mechanisms: first, the acceptance standard — factory effluent must be pre-treated to the zone’s connection standard (the common reference is column B of QCVN 40:2011/BTNMT, or a stricter zone-specific standard) before discharge into the collection system; second, the consequences of exceeding it — required pre-treatment upgrades, exceedance surcharges, or refusal of acceptance until compliant. Some zones also tier unit prices by high-pollution industry groups. When modelling operating costs, obtain all three documents: the current tariff schedule, the connection standard for your industry, and the exceedance surcharge rules — missing any one makes the wastewater budget wrong from year one.
If I treat my wastewater to standard myself, must I still pay the park’s wastewater fee?
Usually yes, because the park’s wastewater fee does not buy only treatment at the central plant — it also covers operating the collection and drainage network and the standby treatment capacity the park must maintain for every factory registered for connection. The sub-lease and the park’s fee rules decide: if the contract commits the factory to mandatory connection to the central system, self-treating to the discharge standard does not automatically remove the fee. To reduce it, the enterprise must agree separately with the developer — a separate connection point with its own metering, reducing the variable cost portion by the actual wastewater volume not sent to the central system — and record the agreement in the contract or an annex. Even where the factory holds its own environmental license for its discharge point, the duty to comply with the park’s general drainage planning exists independently of the fee.
Can the tenant demand that the developer prove the fee composition?
This right does not arise automatically by statute; it comes from two sources: transparency clauses in the service/sub-lease contract (the tenant should negotiate a right to a cost breakdown at initial pricing and at every adjustment), and the price-framework mechanism of Decree 35/2022/ND-CP — the developer must build and notify its framework of sub-lease prices and infrastructure-use fees to the park Management Board, creating an official benchmark. When charges deviate abnormally from the notified framework, the Management Board channel is an effective administrative lever. For metered services such as wastewater, the tenant also has the right to inspect the measurement data (meter readings, effluent sample analyses) underlying the charge.
Which service-fee clauses must the lease lock down to prevent surprise increases?
Five fee clauses must be locked into the sublease. One: the current service tariff schedule is an inseparable annex to the contract, and any charge outside the annex is ineffective against the tenant. Two: the adjustment mechanism — maximum frequency (typically once a year), a ceiling percentage per adjustment, and as a precondition written advance notice with the changed input-cost composition. Three: no retroactive increases — every adjustment applies only from the billing period after valid notice. Four: verification rights — the tenant may demand the cost-composition documents (input electricity invoices, central treatment plant operating costs) or periodic fee audits for major charges. Five: the metering reconciliation mechanism — wastewater/electricity/water meter reading cycles, handling of meter discrepancies, and the right to install check meters. Without these five, ‘surprise increases’ are not a risk but the default outcome of a tariff one party alone controls.
This article has been quality-reviewed by the FLAW AI Legal Council