[Vietnam] Ho Chi Minh City's largest wastewater treatment plant reaches over 75% completion: 480,000 m³/d, USD 240 million, to be commissioned in Q3 2027, while the city's wastewater treatment compliance rate stands at only about 19.5%.

The total investment of Ho Chi Minh City Environmental Sanitation Project Phase 2 is 4.99亿 USD (including a World Bank loan of 3.38亿 USD). The core component, the Nhieu Loc—Thi Nghe Wastewater Treatment Plant, has a treatment capacity of 48万 m³/d and an investment of approximately 2.4亿 USD. It has currently completed over 75% of the works and is expected to be completed in the third quarter of 2027年. Meanwhile, the citywide sewage collection rate is approximately 52%, and the compliance treatment rate is only about 19.5%.

A nearly completed super-large wastewater treatment plant with a capacity of 48万 m³/d, and a citywide compliance treatment rate of less than 20%—these two figures appeared simultaneously in the same briefing by Ho Chi Minh City in 2026年 9月. Together they constitute the most authentic portrait of drainage governance in an emerging Southeast Asian city: the plant is under construction, but the network is not connected; capacity is surplus, but connectivity is insufficient.

The Project Itself: A Four-Year Construction Period Enters Its Final Stretch

According to the progress briefing by the Ho Chi Minh City Urban Infrastructure Construction Investment Project Management Committee 2026年 9月 15日, the Ho Chi Minh City Environmental Sanitation Project Phase 2 (HCMES2) is supported by a World Bank loan and is one of the city's most important environmental infrastructure projects in recent years:

• Total investment: 4.99亿 USD, of which the World Bank loan is 3.38亿 USD, with the remainder from municipal counterpart funds;
• Start date: commenced in 2017年, with a construction period of nearly nine years;
• Core component: Nhieu Loc—Thi Nghe Wastewater Treatment Plant, located in Cat Lai Ward, with a treatment capacity of 48万 m³/d, a total investment of approximately 2.4亿 USD, and commenced in 2020年;
• Current progress: over 75% of the works completed;
• Construction plan: expected to be completed in the third quarter of 2027年, with remaining work mainly involving equipment import and installation, pipeline connection, and commissioning and trial operation;
• Treatment process: adopts the MBBR biological treatment process to treat domestic sewage collected from residential areas, which is discharged into receiving water bodies after meeting standards;
• Supporting collection system: includes the sewage collection pipe network in the former Thu Duc City area, as well as approximately 8 km of closed culverts, used to connect existing outfalls with the wastewater treatment plant.

The MBBR (Moving Bed Biofilm Reactor) process is widely adopted in such large-scale municipal wastewater treatment plants because it has strong resistance to shock loads, does not require complex configuration of a sludge return system, and is suitable for phased construction and capacity expansion. For new urban areas where inflow is gradually ramping up, this characteristic is of great significance—stable effluent can be maintained without waiting for full capacity.

Data Contrast: Where Does the 19.5% Compliance Treatment Rate Come From

At the city drainage seminar held on the same day, a set of comparative data disclosed by Le Ngoc Linh, Deputy Director of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Construction, is more noteworthy than the project progress itself:

• Current status: the citywide sewage collection rate is approximately 52%, of which the compliance treatment rate is only about 19.5%;
• 2030年 target: collection rate of at least 80%, compliance treatment rate of 40%—45%.

This means that in this mega-city with a population of over ten million, nearly half of the sewage is still not collected, and even for sewage that enters the pipe network, the proportion that ultimately undergoes compliant treatment and meets standards is less than 20%. The official assessment of the bottleneck is quite candid—the problem is not only the treatment capacity of the plant, but also the lack of synchronization among the collection pipe network, pumping stations, and conveyance pipelines, resulting in some existing capacity being unable to be fully utilized.

This "plant without network" structure is quite common in rapidly urbanizing areas, and the causes are usually a triple overlap:

• Sewer network construction lags behind urban expansion — roads and blocks take shape first, while underground pipe corridors and pumping station land are added later, resulting in a fragmented collection system;
• Limited space for renovation in old urban areas — narrow streets and alleys and densely packed existing pipelines leave no routing options for new sewage pipes;
• Investment structure favors visible projects — above-ground treatment plants are highly visible and easily financeable, while underground sewer networks require large investment and yield slow results.

The result is a huge gap between treatment capacity and actual treatment performance. The solution proposed by the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Construction directly targets these three causes: prioritize improving the collection system to unlock existing capacity, coordinating drainage and sewage collection with road and alley renovation, urban renewal, and flood control and drainage to avoid repeated excavation; at the same time, require that for new projects, the investment, construction, and operation of treatment plants and collection networks proceed in sync, to prevent the recurrence of "plants have capacity but no water to treat."

2026—2030: Where the Money Comes From, How Technology Fills the Gap

The Ho Chi Minh City Department of Construction stated that from 2026 to 2030年, multiple sewage collection and treatment projects will be advanced, along roughly three paths:

• Fiscal funds and official development assistance in parallel — continuing to utilize municipal budgets and multilateral funds such as those from the World Bank;
• Promoting the PPP model — introducing social capital to participate in new construction and operation, especially in areas with clear revenue sources;
• Digital O&M for efficiency gains — encouraging the application of SCADA systems, digital data, and modern management software to enhance monitoring, scheduling, and forecasting capabilities.

The third point deserves particular attention from domestic peers. At a stage where the sewer network is not yet complete and treatment capacity is limited, using digital means to squeeze maximum efficiency out of existing facilities is the lowest-cost path to improvement. Such needs typically manifest as: online monitoring of pumping station water levels and flow rates, water quality and quantity collection at key points in the network, data-based overflow warning and scheduling optimization, and KPI visualization management for operating units. Compared with new construction projects costing hundreds of millions of dollars, such projects are smaller in scale, shorter in cycle, and faster to yield results — precisely a realistic entry point for technology-oriented companies to enter the Southeast Asian market.

From a regional perspective, Vietnam has been accelerating its actions in the water sector in recent years. Whether it is the pilot restoration of the Red River Delta water system in Hanoi, or pipeline network and wastewater plant projects in cities such as Hue and Da Nang, the "three-piece set" of "shoring up shortcomings at the collection end + digital efficiency improvement + PPP capital introduction" is becoming a standard configuration. This bears similarities to the path China took twenty years ago, but Vietnam starts from a higher baseline — it can directly adopt mature online monitoring and smart scheduling technologies, skipping some intermediate stages.

What It Means for Us: TIANYI TECH's Assessment

TIANYI TECH has long served municipal and industrial park wastewater treatment and reclaimed water reuse clients, and continuously monitors the Southeast Asian water market. Based on this set of data from Ho Chi Minh City, our assessment is: the next round of opportunities in Southeast Asian water is not in mega treatment plants, but in the mid-stream segments of "connectable, manageable, and calculable."

There are three specific recommendations:

• Shift focus from "plant capacity" to "collection and connection rate" — the gap between 19.5% and 80% represents the market space for the next five years; for companies doing pumping stations, pipeline networks, integrated lifting equipment, and connection works, this is more practical than chasing large EPC projects;
• Use pipeline network optimization scheduling and overflow control as the technical entry point — improving the actual performance of existing facilities with limited investment is what local authorities care about most right now;
• Reserve digital interfaces for PPP — whether new construction or existing asset trusteeship, operators need a data foundation that can self-verify performance, which is both a prerequisite for financing and a basis for negotiation.

It should be noted that the returns on such projects depend heavily on local fiscal rhythms and loan procedures, and execution cycles often run longer than expected. Before entering, clarifying the boundaries of payment terms, payment guarantees, and schedule responsibilities is more important than making the technical proposal look impressive.

About TIANYI LIMITED: TIANYI TECH is deeply engaged in the fields of wastewater treatment and reclaimed water reuse, committed to providing efficient, low-carbon, and sustainable water treatment solutions for municipal and industrial clients.