Finnish waste treatment technology has seen great opportunity in Vietnam. In Vietnam, highly rapid pace of socio-economic development has put waste treatment a big challenge. Despite the government’s efforts to apply advance technology, waste treatment has been still handled at low capacity compared to huge market demand. Let’s take a closer look at the challenges and opportunities for Finnish solution providers.
Summary
Condition and market potentiality evaluation
According to statistics, by 2020, urban population will increase by 44 million, accounting for 45% of the national population. By 2025, the number will be 52 million, which accounts for 55% of the national population. These figures mean that the urban waste will also increase about 19 million tons/ year, in which 12.8 million tons is solid domestic waste. Clearly, this requires a lot of actions and shows high potentiality for waste treatment business.
70% of total waste is solid domestic waste. The solid waste with special treatment can be used to convert into energy (W2E – Waste to Energy), which will play a role as a substitute material source for supplementing currently shortage of energy.
Renewable energy produced from waste is a promising possibility due to severe shortage of electricity in Vietnam. With a high rate of solid domestic waste, the W2E business in Vietnam is very potential for foreign investors.
Waste subject to properly categorised can be used to produce fuel cells or CH4 used in boilers.
Beside electricity, clean water is also one of the main concerns. The water source has been badly affected by industrial waste charges. Climate change has also made an impact on natural water source. Together with urbanization and limited budget, the water supply system will face challenges, thus posing opportunities for investment and cooperation in water treatment technology transfer.
Finnish waste treatment technology
Finland has always made a lot of investment in recycling and renewable energy for domestic and industrial uses. The country has accumulated experience and reputation over decades with a lot of research, theory and practice. In fact, all the landfills in Finland have been inactive. Instead, recycling and renewing have become the maijor waste treatment method. Finland has been very successful in recycling and waste-to-energy technology including Bioga technology application for waste treatment. 40% of the energy in Finland is from renewable energy.
Finnish waste treatment projects in Vietnam
Doranova currently has two landfill gas plant projects, one is going to be completed in early 2019 and one six-million euro- project in Ho Chi Minh city.
Watrec has launched it waste to energy project in Hanoi, Vietnam in January 2018.
Valmet has it reprentative office in Vietnam and is very interested in cooperation and technology transfer with Vietnamese partners in this area.
BioGTS is also in its early stage to prepare proposal and implementation plan for biogas technology application in waste and waste water treatment in Dong Thap province, Vietnam.
Recommendation for Finnish companies
Vietnamese government always welcomes investment from Finnish companies in advance waste treatment technology and clean energy. The government has issued many incentives to encourage investment in this area.
However, there have still been several hindrances that cause delay of current projects and slowness in implementation of new ones. The first reason is ununiformed mode and implementation procedures between related partners, which has showed negative impact on project effectiveness and quality. Secondly, it always takes long time until a project can be put into implementation because the new technology requires approval from Ministry of Environment and Natural Resources, heads of provinces and cities, Ministry of Sciences and Technology, Ministry of Construction, etc. One of the most important reasons that decides the feasibility of a project is cost and price. The investment is always high due to new technology. In addition, the local partners have little experience in operating and controlling.
In summary, Vietnam really needs investment, cooperation with as well as experience of Finnish companies to help solve waste treatment and waste to energy problems. Facts show that the annual waste is growing more and more, and has exerted negative impacts. Application of new technologies to completely solve the problems should be studied and actual action must be done as soon as possible.
If you are interested in entering the Vietnamese market
BiziVietnam offers consulting services to Finnish companies to enter Vietnamese market. We also organize delegation visits to Finland in cooperation with Business Tampere to help Vietnamese companies to invest or find business partners in Finland.
