In the Morning of March 1st, 2019 at Binh Duong Convention and Exhibition Center, Vietnam Water and Sewerage Association held an anual conference with the topic: “Water sector development policy: Opportunities, difficulties, challenges and recommendations”. The conference was hosted by Hero of Labour, Mr. Cao Lại Quang – Former Deputy Minister of Construction, Chairman of Vietnam Water Supply and Sewerage Association.

Attending the conference were Mr. Dang Minh Hung - Vice Chairman of Binh Duong People's Committee; representatives of ministries, departments, central branches, leaders of departments in neighboring provinces and numerous water supply and sewerage utilities.

The conference focused on discussing opportunities, challenges and difficulties in the policy of developing Vietnam's water industry and recommendations in the future.

Leaders of Vietnam Water Supply and Sewerage Association, ministries, departments and enterprises of the water sector presented their achievements and lessons learned in the process of equitization, renewing mechanism of water price, system of regulations and standards for water supply and sewerage in Vietnam; business development strategy framework for water sector.

Hero of Labour - Mr. Cao Lại Quang – Former Deputy Minister of Construction, Chairman of Vietnam Water Supply and Sewerage Association.

 

In recent years, the institutional framework for development of water supply and sewerage has gradually improved and contributed to improve the effectiveness of state management as well as facilitate the investment and trading of enterprises in the field of  water supply and sewerage, especially policies related to socialization in order to mobilize all capital sources and encourage the participation of all economic sectors.

According to statistics, in the past 10 years, many industry targets have increased, specifically: The total capacity of water treatment plants is about 9 million m³. The proportion of urban population supplied with clean water through centralized water supply system is 86%; The total amount of treated wastewater is nearly 1 million m³/day corresponding to the urban wastewater treatment rate of about 15-16%; 193/223 operating industrial parks have centralized wastewater treatment plants.

 

 

Mr. Dang Minh Hung - Vice Chairman of Binh Duong People's Committee spoke at the Conference

However, the policy of development of water sector is still inadequate, which is not consistent in legal documents or regulations in legal documents that have not been updated, supplemented, amended; many regulations on support have not been implemented. The regulations of equitization and enterprise management after equitization are insufficient or unreasonable.

Assoc. Prof, Dr. Mai Thi Lien Huong - Director of Department of Technical Infrastructure - Ministry of Construction at the conference

Therefore, the delegates proposed to research and supplement the legal documents (Law of tariff, Law of Investment, Law of Environmental Protection, law of construction, law of Road Traffic) to ensure consistency  and synchrony; to research, formulate and promulgate law of water supply , Drainage and Wastewater; to study roadmap of equitization for water utilities according to local conditions.

 

Tùng Anh

Abstracted from: http://vwsa.org.vn