Tran Van Huy

International Coordinator of the Australian Water Association (AWA)

"In Australia, the air is very clean, and tap water is safe to drink. I am very interested in how to maintain a water supply system in Vietnam that allows us to drink from the tap in the same way"

When asked for his thoughts on the key word to describe Australia – Vietnam relations over the past 50 years, the International Coordinator of the Australian Water Association (AWA), engineer Ph.D. Tran Van Huy, said that it’s a “partnership”.

Huy talked in detail about the collaboration between Australian and Vietnamese companies working in water supply and drainage. He specifically mentioned the partnership between Phu Tho Provincial Water Supply Company and Coliban Water. This project is coordinated by AWA and Vietnam Water Supply and Sewerage Association and sponsored by the Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT). It includes various activities for knowledge and experience exchange, resulting in better water services for more than 170,000 people in Phu Tho province along with success in automating Viet Tri water treatment plant; ensuring the consistency of the water quality in the plant while also reducing water loss from 20% to 14%, which saves a substantial amount of water production costs.

One of the best results of Huy’s contributions is the supply of around 300,000 litres of clean water that is now provided daily to tens of thousands of students, teachers and community members through 26 drinking water stations installed in primary and secondary schools across rural and mountainous areas. Prior to having these drinking water stations, several schools had such a severe lack of clean water that teachers had to pay for drinking water from their own pockets to encourage students to go to school.

Huy is also working on a water industry partnership programme between Vietnam and Australia that aims to enhance capacity and resilience to overcome climate change challenges together. He is providing support for knowledge and experience exchanges between Can Tho Water Supply And Sewerage Company and Urban Utilities; An Giang Provincial Center for Freshwater and Environmental Sanitation and Riverina Water; Hoa Binh Clear Water Company and Cassowary Coast Regional Council; and Phu Tho Water Supply Company and Coliban Water. Australian water supply firms are supporting their Vietnamese partners in digitising operations and real-time water monitoring, which will help with quick responses to water supply incidents. These are a few of many successful collaborative projects that Tran Van Huy has actively and enthusiastically engaged in as AWA’s International Coordinator in Vietnam.

There are few people like Huy in Vietnam, who become an expert in water supply with the kindhearted and simple aspiration to ensure Vietnamese people have a clean water supply that is safe to drink from the tap. After graduating from Hanoi Architectural University with a water engineering degree, he won a full scholarship from the Australian government to pursue a Master’s and later a PhD degree in the water industry at the University of Technology Sydney. Huy saw many similarities between Australia and Vietnam, and hoped to bring back and share experiences with Vietnam. Huy is especially interested in training the next generation in water engineering, saying: “I hope that governing agencies can attract more young people to the water industry.”

There is a significant amount of work to be done between Australian and Vietnamese water sectors in the future. In addition to collaboration between companies, Huy said that the two sides can also exchange experiences in legal aspects, specifically for the Law on Water Supply and Drainage that Vietnam expects to adopt in 2025. Regarding urgent issues such as wastewater treatment and management (approximately 85% of wastewater in Vietnam is untreated) and preparing the water industry's response scenarios to climate change (such as floods, erosion and saltwater intrusion), Australia has abundant experiences that can be exchanged with Vietnam.

Tran Van Huy, alongside many others, has been diligently working as an effective and positive connection point that can help build increasingly better relations between Vietnam and Australia.