Book on waste management plan out soon

THE Phnom Penh Municipal Hall will publish a pamphlet introducing the new waste management system that is coming to the capital and print enough for distribution to the more than 400,000 households obliged to pay the waste collection fee.

This will be done in collaboration with the three companies licensed to handle waste management in different parts of the city.

The municipal administration held a ceremony to mark the start of the new system on February 5, along with the three companies that won the bidding for the contracts to provide the city with solid waste collection and transportation services.

The three companies include Cintri Cambodia which is now working in partnership with Everbright China; Singapore-based 800 Super Waste Management Pte Ltd, in cooperation with local firm Global Action for Environment Awareness Plc (GAEA); and China’s Mizuda Group Co Ltd.

According to a senior official at the municipal hall who asked not to be named, the three companies only provide waste collection and transportation services. The administration and fee collection will be done by the Phnom Penh autonomous excise solid waste management authority.

The official said residents will be able to use an app to check their billing or service schedule and even pay the service fees via the app.

In order to encourage customers to begin using this new and more convenient system, the municipal administration is planning to distribute pamphlets with information and instructions on how it all works.

“The municipal hall will print instructional pamphlets for distribution to each household – or at least the 400,000 of them or so that are obliged to pay the waste collection service fees. It will also inform them about waste disposal services and how to separate the waste for processing.

“With the new management system, we require people to separate their rubbish into wet and dry waste,” he said.

Andrew Durke, a member of the board of GAEA, said the company and their partners are pleased to have the opportunity to help improve waste management in the capital.

“Phnom Penh is a very crowded and fast-growing city. And as people’s incomes continue to increase here, that leads to more consumption and it therefore leads to more waste generation. Providing effective waste collection services on a road full of vehicles and a growing population is a challenge,” he said.

Cintri Cambodia declined

to comment. But the firm’s director, Seng Savy, had previously told The Post that his company would abide by the terms and conditions of the contract.

Mizuda Group did not respond to requests for comment.

Affiliated Network for Social Accountability executive director San Chey said there were two important factors to consider in the management of the city’s waste services.

He said the first factor was that some households are fulfilling their obligations while some are not in terms of storing waste properly and paying the required fees.

As for the second factor, Chey said the authorities must collect data from all properties. He said it was possible that workers fail to collect waste from their place, prompting them to dispose of waste in public place.

“We’ve seen that some houses or Borei [gated residential community] are already full of people, so the question is why they do not dump their rubbish at their place and instead putting the waste along the street. Ask if this is their mistake or as systematic mistake. This is also a problem that needs to be addressed,” he said.

THE US Department of Commerce is preparing to tax aluminium sheet exporters from 18 countries after determining on March 2 that they had benefited from subsidies and dumping.

The US International Trade Commission (ITC), an independent body, must approve the final decision by April 15 to impose anti-dumping or countervailing duties, a department statement said.

The investigation, launched under Donald Trump’s administration, had been requested by nearly a dozen US aluminium alloy manufacturers, including Arconic and Aleris Rolled products, which felt they were being harmed by competing imports at lower prices.

President Joe Biden’s administration determined that imports from Germany in particular ($287 million in 2019) benefited from dumping ranging from 40 to 242 per cent.

The same is true for aluminium alloy sheets from Bahrain ($241 million), which the administration said benefited from pricing below the cost of production or the local market of 83 per cent.

Imports from India ($123 million in 2019) have benefited from subsidies for 35 to 89 per cent, according to the US investigation.

In October, the Trump administration indicated that it had already begun to levy preliminary duties in the investigation.

The other countries concerned are Brazil, Croatia, Egypt, Greece, Indonesia, Oman, Romania, Serbia, Slovenia, South Africa, South Korea, Spain, Taiwan and Turkey.

“If the ITC makes affirmative final injury determinations, Commerce will issue AD or CVD orders,” the department said in the statement, referring to anti-dumping or countervailing duties orders.

According to the statement, 559 orders on various imports are currently in effect to “provide relief to American companies and industries impacted by unfair trade”.

“Foreign companies that price their products in the US market below the cost of production or below prices in their home markets are subject to AD duties.

“Foreign companies that receive unfair subsidies from their governments, such as grants, loans, equity infusions, tax breaks, or production inputs, are subject to CVD duties aimed at directly countering those subsidies,” the statement said.

THE Indonesian government has temporarily cut the value-added tax (PPN) on new homes and the luxury tax (PPnBM) on new car purchases in a bid to boost consumer spending.

Coordinating Minister for Economic Affairs Airlangga Hartarto on March 1 said the tax cuts were expected to add between 0.9 and one percentage point to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth this year by reviving the real estate, construction and automotive sectors, all of which are labour-intensive industries.

“These incentives, of course, cannot be separated from the people’s confidence in the vaccine and Covid-19 containment efforts as the keys to recovery,” he said during a joint press conference with the public works and housing; finance; and industry ministers.

Indonesia officially began its vaccination programme on January 13 with President Joko “Jokowi” Widodo taking the very first jab. The government planned to have vaccinated 1.5 million health workers by February, 38.5 million senior citizens by May and 141.3 million other citizens by March 2022.

Minister of Finance Sri Mulyani Indrawati on Monday 1 said the government needed to allocate five trillion rupiah ($349 million) for the PPN cut and 2.99 trillion rupiah for the PPnBM cut. The tax cuts are part of the 58.46 trillion rupiah National Economic Recovery budget for business incentives.

“We’re supporting the lowerincome group through social aid and we’re supporting the middleincome group through incentives in these sectors. This is a model that we are using to try to revive household spending,” said Sri Mulyani, whose ministry recently issued two regulations to implement the tax incentives.

Finance Ministry Regulation No 21/2021 will cut the PPN for landed houses and low-cost apartments purchased between March 1 and August 31. The tax will be cut 100 per cent for houses priced below two billion rupiah and 50 per cent for houses priced between two and five billion rupiah.

The regulation caps the incentive to one house per citizen and forbids owners from reselling the houses within a year of purchase.

“This has been done to encourage the sales of houses that were built by developers last year and this year but which have not yet been absorbed by the market,” said Minister of PublicWorks and Housing Basuki Hadimuljono, adding that around 27,000 such houses were eligible for the tax cut.

However, Indonesian ConsumerFoundation(YLKI)headTulus Abadi said that such incentives might not revive consumer spending or even be attractive to potential purchasers.

“One of the most common complaints from consumers regarding housing is about quality. Some developers will reduce the quality of a subsidised home, for example. So, it is important to monitor the implementation of this incentive in the future,” he told The Jakarta Post in a phone interview on March 1.