"Waste treatment in Vietnam’s urban areas has shortcomings, and it needs great investment to deal with the problems. The government wants to attract [financial and human] sources from the private sector in this field,” Minister Nguyen Hong Quan said at a press briefing on the sidelines of the “Sustainable Urban Development Forum 2009” that opened in Hanoi on Thursday (26 Feb). However, private firms with limited experience and capital have not been interested in investing in waste treatment because their investment can only be retrieved over a long time, he said.

Some firms have successfully studied a waste treatment technology that helps turn waste into microbial fertilizers and tiny plastic grains, Quan said, adding that his ministry has coordinated with the Ministry of Science and Technology to assess the technology before applying it on a mass scale.

Karin Kortmann, Parliamentarian State Secretary of the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development, said waste treatment is a common work of the community, not just the state, so private firms should not put top priority on profit when investing in it.

Vietnam should create a fair playing field and complete the required legal framework to facilitate private firms’ involvement in waste treatment, she noted.

The development of sewage, wastewater and solid waste management systems in Vietnam’s urban areas and industrial parks has posed numerous problems, the minister said at the forum held by Vietnam’s Ministry of Construction and the German Federal Ministry of Economic Cooperation and Development.

Environmental pollution was common in urban areas and industrial parks, he admitted.

Meanwhile, the discharge of untreated wastewater from industrial production and other activities into water sources has seen many rivers polluted to alarming levels, affecting people’s health, life and production.

“Unregulated waste and wastewater disposal not only harms people’s health and the environment, it also leads to considerable economic losses,” Kortmann said at the two-day forum. “The World Bank estimates that Vietnam’s economic losses caused by inadequate waste and wastewater management amount to 1.3 percent of its national income.” Children can still be seen playing in the waste or alongside polluted canals in Vietnam, she added.

According to the ministry, Vietnam’s urbanization rate now stands at 30.5 percent and it is expected to increase to 45 percent by 2020, when the urban population will be around 45 million. This will put pressure on infrastructure that cannot be withstood if measures aren’t taken now.

Meanwhile, local waste treatment plans are still using outdated technologies. It is also estimated that the plants are operating at a capacity of 265,000 cubic meters per day, 10 percent lower than the real demand.

Vietnam still has a long way to go to achieve its ambitious target of providing all large cities with wastewater systems and all industrial zones with their own wastewater treatment facilities by 2010, she said. “So it would be very advisable for Vietnam to continue its course of reform and to use its new legislation as a basis for political decisions and concrete action in the cities,” Kortmann noted.

Germany has worked closely with Vietnam in the wastewater and waste treatment area since 2002. Several sewage systems are being upgraded, and wastewater treatment plants set up in six provinces. Similar work will begin soon in two or three more provinces, she said. Germany is also beginning to invest in industrial wastewater treatment plants in Vietnam with a total investment of about €200 million, with Vietnam contributing about €58 million.

“In a country like Vietnam, the environmental problem cannot be solved by a single sector or at a single government level independently, there is a need for coordination among different sectors, and between governments from central to local levels, as well as the participation of all organizations and individuals,” Quan said.

“It is important that we share the same awareness, identify and realize policies together and find appropriate solutions in order to ensure the success and achievements of our targets,” the minister added.

Regarding flood-tides in Ho Chi Minh City, Quan said the government and the city’s authorities are determined to deal with the problem. The government has tasked the Construction Ministry with mapping out a plan to prevent flood-tides in the city, and the ministry has collected opinions from other ministries and sectors for doing this, he added.