New Vision for Urban Development in Vietnam

Vietnam’s urban networks have been developed considerably for a decade and the number of urban areas has soared to 754 from 629 in 1999. The urbanization rate has increased to 28 percent from 20.7 percent in 1999 and is forecast to reach 45 percent in 2020, which will be the same as the urbanization rate in the region. However, there still exists a lot of weaknesses.

Serious imbalance

Over the past decade, Vietnam’s urban systems have developed rapidly. Urban population has risen to nearly 26 million people from 18.3 million people in 1999 with the annual average population growth rate of 3.4%. Urban network has developed widely in six areas across the country while the number of urban areas has soared to 754 from 629 in 1999.

Despite fast development, Vietnam’s urban system is still inappropriate to some extent. According to the Ministry of Construction’s Urban Development Department, Vietnam’s urban population rose to 31.7 million people as of June, 2009, accounting for 37 percent of the national population. Of whom, 25.5 million people are living in the inner city, representing 29.7 percent of the national population. Areas in the inner city occupy a total of 14,104 hectares, accounting for 24 percent of national land fund for urban areas. Urban houses cover a total of 320.722 million sq.m as of June, 2009, representing 30.3 percent of the national housing land fund. The country’s per capital housing acreage was 12.2sq.m in 2008.

The figures indicate that urban planning is imbalanced; particularly there is a disparity between third-tier and fourth-tier, fourth-tier and fifth-tier urban areas. In the inner city, only 27.7 percent of land is utilized, which means that urban areas have not yet placed due attention to construction, accomplishments and filling the inner city as standard. Meanwhile, the urbanization rate is slow in mountainous, midland and island areas.

Good planning to facilitate development

The idea to build a synchronic social and technical infrastructure started in the 1990s in Linh Dam urban area by the Housing and Urban Development Corporation (HUD). On January 5, 2006, the government of Vietnam issued decree No. 02/2006/NĐ- CP on new urban areas. By the end of 2008, the number of new urban areas with a minimal acreage of 20 hectares rose to 486 that occupied a total of 74,058 hectares.

Experts said that Vietnam needs good planning in order to ensure proper urban development. In 2008, 58 out of 63 cities and provinces had mapped out their own planning to build fourth-tier urban areas. The Prime Minister approved urban planning of Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City in 2009, which has paved the way for real estate developers to accelerate their social housing projects in these big cities.

Investors have registered to invest in 267 projects to build dormitories with a total capital of VND26.045 trillion (US$1.457 billion). The investors plan to build accommodations for students with total acreage of 4.931 million sq.m to serve 812,000 students in the 2009-2010 period. Investors have also registered to invest VND25.554 billion in 110 projects to build houses with a total acreage of 6 million sq.m to serve 960,260 workers through 2015. Twenty-one localities plan to invest a total of VND28.55 trillion in 189 projects to build 166,390 apartments with a total acreage of 7.106 million sq.m for 700,000 low incomers in the 2009-2015 period.

The Vietnamese Ministry of Construction is coordinating with relevant ministries and agencies to build the country’s modern urban plan, which will meet international standards to improve people’s living conditions and narrow the gap between urban and rural area.

Vietnam now has a total of 754 urban areas, including Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City, seven first-tier urban areas, 14 second-tier urban areas, 45 third-tier urban areas, 40 fourth-tier urban areas and 646 fifth-tier urban areas. In addition, the country has 10,000 residential areas in rural areas as well as nearly 200 industrial parks.

Posted by VBN on Dec 7 2009. Filed under Economy News, Infrastructure. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry