Qingdao, China, and Palembang, Indonesia: The Beginning of Environmental Cooperation Between Two Cities (1990s)

Qingdao, China, and Palembang, Indonesia: The Beginning of Environmental Cooperation Between Two Cities (1990s)
As industrial growth accelerated in Asia in the 1990s, environmental issues such as factory effluent, air pollution, and waste disposal became more apparent. While China and Southeast Asia were becoming increasingly attractive as manufacturing bases for Japanese companies, delays in the development of environmental standards were an issue that threatened the sustainability of production. Against this backdrop, an international environmental project by an EBARA Corporation-affiliated company attracted attention.

In Qingdao City, Shandong Province, China, a Japan-China joint venture plant was established as the base for a cooperative system to procure equipment and design water treatment facilities in Japan and China. At that time, while the reform and open-door policy was promoting the introduction of foreign capital, there was a serious shortage of environmental technology, and the water treatment expertise of Japanese companies was in demand.

Meanwhile, a model wastewater treatment plant for a natural rubber factory was constructed in Palembang, Indonesia, under the Green Aid Plan of the Ministry of International Trade and Industry (MITI). In this country, rubber factory wastewater is a cause of odors and ecological destruction of rivers, and a low-cost wastewater treatment technology suited to the local market was needed. Japan's cooperation was an attempt to transfer the technology with a view to its widespread use in the future.

In the early 1990s, the transfer of environmental technology by developed countries became a pillar of international cooperation, and a framework integrating economic assistance and environmental conservation was formed. The cases of Qingdao and Palembang are symbolic of the era in which Japan faced environmental issues in Asia.