Hanoi spends up to USD31.2 million yearly on mowing grass and pruning plants, according to Hanoi People’s Committee Chairman Nguyen Duc Chung at a recent municipal meeting.

"It is unacceptable that the pruning of grass and trees along a 24-kilometre section on Thang Long Avenue alone costs around USD2.35 million a year," Chung stated.

According to the list of projects to call for Hanoi's plant pruning bidding published on the Ministry of Planning and Investment's national online procurement system, many projects have the bidding price of tens of billions of VND, such as VND27 billion for belt road No.3, VND26 billion for Van Cao-Lieu Giai-Nguyen Chi Thanh route. Meanwhile, the lowest bidding price is VND15 billion for smaller streets.

Thang Long Avenue

Chairman Nguyen Duc Chung added that Hanoi now uses the local budget to hire companies for mowing grass, pruning and growing trees. So, more companies have rushed into this area, leading to a quality problem. Tree-planting businesses only concentrate on quantity instead of quality; as a result, trees along many streets are often uprooted after only a short time of being planted due to improper care, he elaborated.

He said that to prevent wastefulness, he ordered all local districts to halt the flower trimming work from July 1 and this work would only continue at gardens along the Hoan Kiem Lake and a few other major sites.

Meanwhile, 98 hectares of land along Thang Long Avenue will be turned into a forest linking Ba Vi District and the National Convention Centre by planting 45,000 trees, instead of planting flowers and grass like at present to mitigate waste, Chung said.