JICA funds project to improve VN’s capacity for water management

Hanoi (VNA) –

The Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) will provide

technical assistance

worth 914,000 USD to a project to improve Vietnam’s capacity for

water environment management

.

Under the project, which was launched by the Vietnam Environment Administration (VEA), JICA and Japanese-based Optex Company Limited on October 8, simple water monitoring devices will be installed at 54 points in provinces in the Cau River basin which are Bac Kan, Thai Nguyen, Bac Ninh, Bac Giang, Vinh Phuc and Hai Duong provinces and Hanoi city. The project aims to assess those devices’ efficiency, suitability for the local environment and their satisfaction of techniques and measurement regulations in Vietnam.

The project will be carried from October 2019 to September 2020.

VEA Deputy Director Nguyen Hung Thinh said that environment monitoring has been maintained in Vietnam since 1994, and it has played an increasing role in environmental protection and management in the country.

He laid stress on the importance to enhance water monitoring activities in river basins as socio-economic development is exerting great pressure on the water resources.

Daisuke Okabe, a representative from the Japanese Embassy in Vietnam, said that the Cau River basin is suffering from serious pollution, and the project’s equipment, which is able to collect the monitoring data easily at low cost, is expected to assist with the control of water quality in the basin.

Meanwhile, Koji Takauchi, a senior consultant at JICA, believed the project will solve problems of water quality in Vietnam’s river basins based on products that have been successfully applied in Japan./.