Vietnam’s southern economic hub of Ho Chi Minh City is estimated to need VND200 trillion ($9.52 billion) to implement environment projects in the 2012-2020 period, state media reported. This is part of the city’s overall plan on infrastructure development with a total investment of VND600 trillion by that year. The sum will be spent on 197 projects, focusing on environmental sanitation, water environment improvement, water drainage, dyke system reinforcement and wastewater treatment. In 2006-2010, the city launched five large environment protection programs with the aim of helping remove all the seriously polluting industrial establishments from the inner city; and treat 100% industrial and handicraft production establishments’ effluent, 95% of ordinary solid waste, 75% of deleterious industrial waste, and 100% of medical waste in accordance with the environment standards. The southern metropolis has also been conducting programs to raise public awareness on environmental protection, to reinforce the state management, and to intensify inter-regional and international cooperation on the issue. In fact, the most populous city is facing with severe environment pollution caused by untreated wastewater, excessive dust content in air as well as contaminated underground water, which are seriously threatening the locals’ health. The southern metropolis is also facing serious air quality degradation and it is estimated to annually lose around $50 million from polluted air. (Tuoi Tre – Youth April 13 p3)
