Tap water loss reaches 30 percent in Ho Chi Minh City

July 03, 2015 | 09:53

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The heavy loss of tap water which has taken place for decades in Ho Chi Minh City and other localities across Vietnam has emerged on the agenda of the meeting today of the city’s Party Committee.

The rate of loss reaches 30 percent on average, meaning every a million cubic meters of tap water produced, 300,000 cubic meters are lost due to leakage of water pipes, according to the city Party Secretary Le Thanh Hai.

This is an urgent issue that must be improved, he stressed.

The Saigon Water Corporation (SAWACO) had plans to pull down the rate of loss to 25 percent by 2025.

Hai also mentioned the quality of tap water in the city.

Our people are always warned to use cooking water for drinking while in other countries, tap water is always ready for drinking, Hai said.

At the meeting, authorities set a target to provide clean tap water to all city residents by the end of this year. To reach this target, water supply companies in Ho Chi Minh City must finish installing pipes and supplying water to 350,000 families this year.

Hai confirmed that this target must be completed this year.

“It is painful when local residents have no clean water to drink especially after 40 years of liberation,” he told the meeting.

In April, SAWACO, which is tasked with managing and supplying tap water in the city, proposed increasing the prices of tap water by 10.5 percent a year from now till 2019.

As proposed, the prices will top VND9,612 a cubic meter this year and VND14,357 a cubic meter in 2019, or an over 50 percent rise after five years. Now, US$1 equals VND21,555.

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