VietNamNet Bridge – A consortium of South Korean firms Hanwha E&C and K-Water have proposed implementing a wastewater treatment facility for the Tan Hoa-Lo Gom canal basin in HCMC under the public-private partnership (PPP) form. The project requires some US$300 million.

The HCMC government is expected to clinch a memorandum of understanding with the investors when the city’s leaders and more than 20 enterprises visit Korea from May 24 to 28.

Le Thanh Liem, head of the HCMC Urban Civil Works Construction Investment Management Authority, said in late March that the city government was calling for investment in the wastewater treatment plant having a daily capacity of 300,000 cubic meters.

The facility covering around 22 hectares in Tan Nhut Commune in the outlying district of Binh Chanh is designed to treat all the wastewater in the Tan Hoa-Lo Gom canal basin. Untreated wastewater in the area is currently collected via the eight-kilometer sewer and discharged into Tau Hu-Ben Nghe canal.

The city is looking for investors for another wastewater project to be carried out in the Saigon West basin under the PPP format. With a daily designed capacity of 120,000 cubic meters, the project aims to treat wastewater for residential areas in the Tham Luong-Ben Cat-Rach Nuoc Len basin in District 12, Tan Phu and Binh Tan. Sixteen local and foreign investors have shown interest in the project.

Basic legal documents for PPP projects in Vietnam are the Government’s Decree 15/2015/ND-CP issued on February 14, 2015 and Decree 30/2015/ND-CP issued on March 17, 2015. But investors are still concerned about problems with PPP investments, including a lack of payment guarantees for investors, difficulties in finding land sites for projects and collection fees for sewage treatment.

HCMC currently has two operational wastewater facilities, the Binh Hung plant with a daily capacity of 141,000 cubic meters in the first phase and the Binh Hung Hoa plant able to treat 30,000 cubic meters a day. Meanwhile, the city discharges up to two million cubic meters of wastewater a day.