Study: Investment in global water-waste industry continues to grow

DUBLIN, Ireland, Oct. 11, 2004 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Research and Markets has announced the addition of Water & Waste Utilities of the World Edition 6 - 2004 to its market analysis offerings.

The water and waste sector is the fastest growing utility sector, currently going through a period of unprecedented change, development and consolidation. The drivers are quite different in the developed and developing world:
-- In the industrialized world, the environmental industry is driven by past underinvestment, coinciding with a spate of environmental legislation. Many of these countries have infrastructures over a hundred years old.
-- In the developing countries, the imperative is more basic; it is to provide safe water and sanitation for nearly 2-1/2 billion people who do not have any service at all and who are multiplying by 80 million every year.

The investment requirement is enormous and will grow even bigger. The demands on the water companies are heavy and will intensify. In the last 10 years there have been major shifts in ownership and responsibility in the water sector and the process of restructuring continues as providers seek to meet escalating challenges. This involves not only increased private investment, but also the redistribution of responsibilities between different government administrative levels. A realistic world is placing new responsibilities on consumers, as treasuries face the multiple demands on their resources.

The '90s heralded an explosion of private investment in the environmental sector but some hard lessons have been learned. The trend towards private management continues but the target countries are being redefined. This report examines these issues and provides basic analysis of the changing scene. The report contains up-to-date profiles of the water supply, wastewater and waste sectors in each of 171 countries. Each profile contains economic and water statistics, details of water supply sources, a description of the water supply and sewage infrastructure, levels of treatment and pollution, an outline of the organizational structure with details of ownership (state/municipal/private/cooperative), the operational model for each country.

The government organizations, utilities and industry associations are listed for each country. The report provides company names of 3,824 utilities (2,511 classified with address, telephone and fax), 369 government ministries and entities, 69 industry associations, both categories with address, telephone and fax. The report contains profiles of the 10 major private water and waste utility companies which account for 82% of the global private provision of water and waste services, serving nearly half a billion people.

Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com) is a Dublin, Ireland, based information services company that provides market demographics on a number of industries including water and wastewater. For more information on this report, visit www.researchandmarkets.com/reports/c7134.

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