HN beefs up cooperation with France on air quality assessment
VGP – Chairman of Ha Noi municipal People’s Committee Nguyen Duc Chung received French Ambassador to Viet Nam Bertrand Lortholary, Director of Airparif Frederic Bouvier, and Director of the French Development Agency (AFD) in Vietnam Fabrice Richy in Ha Noi on October 17.
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| Chairman of Ha Noi municipal People’s Committee Nguyen Duc Chung (R) receives French Ambassador to Viet Nam Bertrand Lortholary |
During the meeting, the two sides reviewed the one-year-old project, under which air monitoring stations were set up in Ha Noi.
Chairman Chung called upon Airparif, an agency in charge of monitoring air quality in Ile-de-France, to improve the quality of the monitoring stations.
Mr. Chung pledged that Ha Noi will implement action programs and plans to improve air quality in the city based on the outcomes of a French-funded air quality assessment project.
Earlier, in September, Green Innovation and Development Centre (GreenID), a Hanoi-based NGO, released a report on air quality in Viet Nam in the first half of this year. It compared air quality in 2017’s first six months and in the same period of 2016.
Based on the report, from January to June, Ha Noi suffered 139 days of excessive PM2.5 level, according to international standards.
The data showed no relation between the concentration of pollutants and peak traffic hours, meaning air quality has been affected by different pollution sources, notably the energy industry./.
By Kim Anh
