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With an eye on increasing global demand for water
conservation technology, international industrial solutions and
services group Siemens will build a 25 million euro (about US$33
million) water research and development engineering center in Singapore.
Siemens Water Technologies president Roger Radke said Thursday in
Singapore that the center aimed to turn Singapore into a center for
water and wastewater technologies in the Asia Pacific Region within the
next five years.
The engineering center would employ some 60 researchers and
professionals on developing water and wastewater technologies.
Radke also signed an agreement Thursday with Singapore's national water
agency, the Public Utilities Board (PUB), under chief executive Khoo
Teng Chye, to collaborate on water R&D projects. It is envisaged
that the center will work with universities, the PUB and environmental
authorities.
Haygriva Jaganath Rao, the head of Siemens Water Technologies
Singapore, said the company would work with the PUB on three R&D
projects for the development of water purification technology, sludge
treatment and handling technology, and technology for optimizing the
volume of water produced.
A small island that is not blessed with an abundance of water,
Singapore has set up a model for sustainable water management. It
applies an integrated water management approach, using a variety of
water sources, including local catchments, imported water from
Malaysia, desalinated water and recycled water, dubbed NEWater.
The PUB's Khoo said that between 2006 and 2010, Singapore's R&D
budget would come close to $8.8 billion, of which some $214 million
would be spent on environmental and water technologies. Khoo said that
most of the technology for NEWater was supplied by Siemens.
Elsewhere, Radke said that water technology was essential to ensuring
the economic growth of the Asia Pacific region as the natural resources
and the infrastructure here remained inadequate.
The infrastructure for water conservation and sanitation in many parts
of Asia is poor. In Indonesia alone, 45 percent of the population, or
around 100 million people, do not have access to proper sanitation.
Haryadi Priyohutama, the director of the Jakarta water company, PAM
Jaya, has warned that a water crisis could hit the capital within the
next three years unless an effort is made to secure a long-term,
sustainable supply of water.
Rao said that Siemens was also eyeing the Indonesian market, having
established a branch of Siemens Water Technologies in the country last
year. He said they currently had orders from oil and gas companies such
as Caltex, and were planning to meet with the authorities in Indonesia.
He said that the water market was currently worth about $400 billion,
with the water-treatment market accounting for $44 billion of this.
"Siemens is number one in this area, holding between a 4 and 5 percent
market share," he said.
The United Nations Development Program (UNDP)'s 2006 Human Development
Report, titled Beyond scarcity: power, poverty and the global water
crisis, said that people living in the slums of Jakarta, Manila and
Nairobi paid five to 10 times more for water per unit than those in
high-income areas of the same cities.
It said poor families in the slums also spent more for their water than
consumers pay in London or New York.
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