HCM City (VNA) - The Ho ChiMinh City Department of Natural Resources and Environment plans to improvewaste and water management as well as land-use management this year.

Nguyen Toan Thang, director of thedepartment, revealed the four main targets for 2018 at a meeting on January 22in the city.

They include reducing groundwaterexploitation, from 716,000cu.m to 487,000cu.m per day, a decrease of 31 percent,and having 100 percent of solid waste treated in accordance with environmentalstandards.

Figures from the department show thatbetween December 31, 2016 and December 31, 2017 the city treated around 3.2million tonnes of domestic waste.

Other targets would ensure that 95 percentof industrial waste water and 100 percent of medical waste water will betreated this year.

The city has also been assigned 17 tasks intotal this year.

Among them are better monitoring of theconversion of land-use purposes and relocation compensation; submitting listsfor the climate-change adaptation programmes; enhancing garbage sorting atsource and encouraging international cooperation in sharing information onclimate and environmental issues; and calling for investment in waste treatmentprojects.

Some of the tasks are built on last year’stargets, according to Thang.

Tran Vinh Tuyen, vice chairman of the municipalPeople’s Committee, praised the department for achieving last year’s targets,saying it was a “tough job”.

“This year, we achieved a very high GRDPgrowth rate of 8.25 percent. This is very exciting as it helped us reach ourbudget target in 2017,” he said.

According to the city’s State treasury, thetotal State budget revenue in HCM City reached 347.98 trillion VND (15.32billion USD) in 2017, slightly more than the year’s target, and up 13.5 percentcompared to 2016.

“The good results that we achieved lastyear were because of the joint efforts of the entire political system,including the natural resources and environment department,” he said.

He spoke highly of Thang for clearlydividing the tasks, which made it easier to monitor and evaluate the results.

He instructed the department to send itsdraft proposals on fees for industrial waste water treatment and restrictionson groundwater exploitation to the HCM City Fatherland Front Committee andrelated enterprises and business associations for feedback before submitting itto the city’s People’s Council.

Regarding the conversion of land-usepurposes, Tuyen said: “As the city does not play a role in ensuring foodsecurity for the country, it should allow switching some agricultural land forcommercial use to increase the State budget revenue.”

He asked the department to ensureappropriate land-use fees for enterprises and promptly issue land-usecertificates, saying that lending land to businesses would help generaterevenue for the city budget.

Regarding environmental management, Tuyen askedthe department to adopt more new air and water pollution monitoringtechnologies.

He said the department should voluntarilyprovide information on pollution issues, including, for example, Ba Bo Canalpollution, at meetings of the city People’s Council, rather than wait until thecity administration requests for a report.

Though the department has always been apioneer in raising public awareness about environmental protection, some of itsactivities last year did not bring good results, he added.

Next month, the city will hold a workshopcalling investment for projects that will relocate residents in 20,000 housesin slums along canals and rivers.

Tuyen asked the department to take part inthe workshop and to share its thoughts and comments.

“Settling this issue not only means thesepeople will have a new place to live, but it will also help improve theirenvironmental hygiene and health,” he said.

Once the slums are removed, river tourismwill have more potential to develop, he added. - VNA