In September 2017, Water. Desalination + reuse (Faversham House) reported that Singapore-based Darco Water Technologies and InfraCo Asia Development planned to design, build, own and operate (DBOO) four municipal plants in Vietnam treating river water to drinking standard, 62,000 m³/day in total. Construction of the first, with 15,000 m³/day in Ben Tre province, was to begin in the fourth quarter of 2017. For one plant in the south, a feasibility study was checking whether seawater intrusion required brackish water treatment. The government agency IE Singapore had brought the partners together.
The report showed a Singapore contractor moving from construction contracts towards owning and operating plants, and seawater reaching rivers already entering the planning of small drinking water schemes.