Around 30% of public buses checked this year in Hanoi emit black smoke that seriously pollutes the environment, state media reported, citing an official. Trinh Ngoc Giao, head of Vietnam Register Department, said that three in every ten buses checked at random in the city last year violated emission standards, threatening the urban atmosphere. Giao said that the department withdrew the registration permission of the substandard buses will only relicense them once meeting standards. He said that the causes are attributed to poor quality of vehicles which mostly imported from China, adding that the substandard buses have not received regular maintenance while overloaded at peak hours. Public transport in Hanoi is only by bus which is reported cheap but inconvenient and local residents prefer private vehicles to public ones, local analysts said. (Tien Phong Jan 5, Lao Dong Jan 5)
