In 2005, Vietnam’s largest city, Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC), did not have enough water supply to meet demand. More than 40 percent of the water produced was lost as leakage. Supply was intermittent. To increase supply to customers, the state-owned water utility, Saigon Water Corporation (SAWACO), competitively procured a contractor to enter a performance-based contract (PBC) for non-revenue water (NRW) reduction, with a focus on leakage reduction in one of its six hydraulic zones.

Non-revenue water (NRW) management can deliver significant financial and economic benefits, and to a large extent, NRW programs can be self-financing—rapid revenue gains from commercial loss reduction, for example, can supply the OPEX and CAPEX funds needed to reduce the NRW.