Vietnam Environmental Technologies Export Market Plan

Chapter 6
Wastewater Treatment
6.1—Current Trends
Vietnam is seriously deficient in the area of wastewater
treatment. Enormous quantities of industrial wastewater
are generated annually and discharged, untreated, into
lakes, canals, rivers, and streams. Companies have
insufficient funds to install water treatment facilities. The
Vietnamese state-industrial sector remains the largest
source of untreated wastewater. Many enterprises are
hopelessly mired in debt with no real prospects of
turnaround. Spending precious resources on pollution
control equipment is rarely a priority.
Foreign-invested businesses, industrial parks, and
export processing zones generally have built their own
wastewater treatment plants to comply with the
government’s environmental regulations. According to
anecdotal reports, some companies choose not to use the
treatment facilities in order to save on operating costs.
In a report issued in May 1999, Professor Le Quy An,
a deputy minister at MOSTE, estimated that Hanoi dumps
300,000 m 3 of untreated wastewater daily. The Viet Tri
Industrial Zone outside Hanoi dumps nearly 170,000 m 3
of wastewater into the Red River and its tributaries. The
Thuong Dinh industrial zone in Hanoi adds another
22,000 m 3 of daily waste. Professor Le also estimated
that Ho Chi Minh City discharges 730,000 m 3 of
wastewater per day. Ho Chi Minh City’s infamous “black
canals” are open dumping grounds for 700 large factories
and 30,000 smaller industrial establishments. Water with
biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) content larger than
13 mg/liter is considered contaminated. Some of the water
tested in the HCMC canal system reaches BOD content
of 50 to 200 mg/liter.
MOSTE estimates the following as the daily amount
of pollutants discharged into the city’s canals: 590 tons
of solid wastes, 270 tons of BOD, 480 tons of chemical
oxygen demand (COD), 50 tons of nitrogen, 14 tons of
phosphorous, and 110 tons of organic oil.
The most industrialized parts of Vietnam are in
provinces and cities to the north of Ho Chi Minh City.
Dong Nai province and the city of Bien Hoa as well as
Binh Duong province are some of the most economically
successful regions of the country and are, in turn, the
source of much of the country’s pollution.
Bien Hoa Industrial Zone pours tens of thousands of
cubic meters of wastewater into the Dong Nai River.
Several kilometers away are the Bien Hoa and the Hoa
An water plants, which supply usable water to Bien Hoa
City and Ho Chi Minh City.
6.2—Market Opportunities and
Competitive Situation
Nearly all of the key components used in wastewater
treatment systems in Vietnam are imported. Local
companies are winning contracts to design and install
treatment facilities. Almost universally, they purchase
parts from overseas and assemble the equipment
domestically. Vietnam has little difficulty building or
sourcing water tanks and the like. Parts such as fans,
blowers, pumps, valves, and motors are imported from a
variety of sources, including Italy, France, Switzerland,
Japan, and Korea.
Foreign-Invested Enterprises and Joint Ventures
With the decline in foreign investment, fewer
opportunities are available for supply of wastewater
treatment equipment to foreign enterprises and joint
ventures. Most of the foreign-invested manufacturing
enterprises have at least some form of wastewater
treatment facilities already in place.
Realistic market opportunities are for existing ventures
that are building new facilities or expanding production.
But here, too, market opportunities are limited, with many
manufacturing enterprises facing stockpiles of goods. The
market trend is not toward expanding capacity but in
managing market gluts.
If a trade agreement with the United States can be
finalized, the market should change shape rapidly. Textile
producers will be the main beneficiaries of the trade
agreement because of the lower import tariffs on
Vietnamese textile goods that Normal Trade Relations
will bring. With textile and garment firms installing new
production lines and expanding output, the need for new
Vietnam Export Market Plan
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