Vietnam’s Most Populous City Needs More Housing

The most populous and largest city of Vietnam Ho Chi Minh City is expected to need an additional 160,000 social housing apartments in the next decade to meet its rising population and demand for affordable housing, according to the city’s Department of Construction.

BY Realty Plus
Published - Friday, 11 Dec, 2020

Vietnam’s Most Populous City Needs More Housing

The most populous and largest city of Vietnam Ho Chi Minh City is expected to need an additional 160,000 social housing apartments in the next decade to meet its rising population and demand for affordable housing, according to the city’s Department of Construction. The department has asked the municipal People’s Committee for approval of a housing development master plan in the 2021-2030 period. The southern Vietnamese city is expected to have a population of around 11.1 million by 2030, the department said. City plans to develop social housing, with a total floor area of four million sqm for about 160,000 apartments. Of the figure, it will need around 1.8 million sqm of floor space from next year to 2025, and 2.2 million sqm of floor space from 2026 to 2030. To achieve the targets, the city will ask investors of projects covering 10ha or more to set aside 20 per cent of their land in each project for social housing. The city will also give priority to using the state-owned land fund to build social housing. The housing master plan for the 2021-2030 period sets targets for all kinds of housing, totaling 295 million sqm, with an average floor area per person of 26.5sqm. Apart from the targets set for social housing, commercial housing projects are expected to have a total floor area of 45.2 million sqm by 2030, including 19.7 million sqm for the period of 2021 to 2025, and 25.5 million sqm for the 2026 to 2030 period. City also aims to have 59.2 million sqm of floor area for the individual housing segment by 2030. To reach the targets, the city will call for investment into development of housing projects under the form of public private partnerships (PPP) through promoting international cooperation, and providing financial assistance. Demand for social housing in the city is huge, but the current supply is insufficient for low-income earners.