China, India Asia's most polluted

China, India Asia's most polluted

SINGAPORE (AFP): Asia's poorer and most populous countries
China, India, the Philippines, Vietnam and Indonesia are
perceived to be the most polluted, while Singapore, Malaysia and
Japan are the cleanest, a regional survey showed.

Pollution, which covers the quality of air and water, noise
levels and traffic congestion, has been singled out as the
biggest complaint among expatriates living in Asia, according to
the latest survey by the Political and Economic Risk Consultancy
Ltd. (PERC).

"Air pollution is generally considered to be the biggest
single environmental problem in Asia, while traffic congestion is
another headache throughout the region," PERC said. "The
perception of water and noise pollution is more mixed."

In the survey, PERC asked expatriates living in 12 Asian
countries and territories to rate the quality of air and water,
noise as well as traffic.

Ratings for each category were averaged into an overall
grading scale from zero to 10, where zero was the best and 10 the
worst.

India emerged the worst overall with a score of 8.31. It was
followed by China with 8.03, Vietnam with 7.63, the Philippines
with 7.55, Indonesia with 7.33 and Hong Kong with 7.28.

India's major cities have among the highest levels of sulfur
dioxide and nitrogen oxide, PERC said. A fifth of its urban
households have no access to safe drinking water, just 23 percent
have toilets and only 48 percent have sanitation coverage.

"China has one of Asia's most polluted environments. In terms
of water resources, this is not a crisis waiting to happen -- it
is already there," PERC said.

Singapore emerged top with a grade of 3.38, beating Japan with
3.63 and Malaysia with 4.50 to become the only three countries
with a score better than the average of five.

Thailand had an overall grade of 7.02, South Korea 6.25 and
Taiwan 5.84.

The Philippines scored the worst in air quality, with a grade
of 8.60 -- getting worse from 7.86 in a similar survey last year.
Hong Kong came next with 8.47, China with 8.38 and India with
8.13.

For water quality, Vietnam scored the worst with a 9.0,
worsening from 8.30 last year. It was followed by India and China
with scores of 8.63 and 8.25, respectively.

China was the worst in terms of noise pollution with 8.13,
followed by India and Vietnam tied at 8.00 and Hong Kong at 7.77.

In terms of traffic congestion, expatriates gave the thumbs
down to South Korea with a score of 9.0. The Philippines, with
8.60, was seen as worse than Thailand with 7.18 and was neck and
neck with India which got 8.50.

"Unfortunately, quite a few countries scored badly for
virtually all aspects of the environment. In most cases, these
were Asia's poorer, more populous countries," PERC said.

Noting that China and more recently India have been seeing
faster economic growth, PERC said such expansion has been carried
out without effective environmental programs.

This "raises the very real question of how sustainable the
economic development of these giants of Asia can be in the medium
term," it said.

PERC warned that "unless the governments change their
policies, environmental bottlenecks to development will intensify
sooner or later."

"The problem of pollution is not something that can be swept
under the carpet indefinitely. It has real, tangible costs on
society," the report added.

While Singapore and Japan have strictly enforced environmental
policies, other countries such as the Philippines and Indonesia
have been lax, it said.

"Consequently ... what were once pristine resources in these
countries have been permanently damaged or lost," it said, citing
overlogging and coral reef destruction in the Philippines.

The refusal by the United States to ratify the Kyoto Protocol,
which binds countries to cut the emission of greenhouse gases, is
a "serious setback" to the fight against global warming, the
report said.

But this should present the European Union an opportunity to
pick up the slack and help Asia, especially China, technically
and financially to solve their environmental problems, it said.
One area is in switching from coal to natural gas.

This could translate into lucrative contracts for European
firms, especially if China wins its bid to host the 2008 Summer
Olympics -- a catalyst for the government to showcase a
pollution-free country, PERC said.