Danang burns bright on map

Danang is rolling out the red carpet for potential investors

Metro Cash & Carry spent $15 million building a store in the city last December and supermarket operator Bourbon and cinema provider MegarStar are expected to follow suit with their businesses due to start mid next year.
The three retailers operated in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City before descending on Danang as the city’s annual economic growth rate of 13 per cent on average over the past five year, higher than Hanoi’s and Ho Chi Minh City’s, boosts consumption.
Danang’s annual per capita income grew to $950 last year from $520 five years earlier and municipal People’s Committee Tran Van Minh said the city aimed to achieve the annual income of $2,000 in 2010, higher than the expected national average of $1,100.
“Between 2006 and 2010, Danang wants to have annual GDP growth rate of 14 per cent,” said Minh.
The bright economic prospects have also heated up real estate development. Duc Manh Company is building Vinh Trung Plaza, a mixed-used property in the downtown area, allowing Bourbon to locate its supermarket and MegaStar a six-screen cineplex.
Vinh Trung Plaza has 15,000 square metres of retail space, the second biggest centre outside Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City with the other being the 26,000sqm TD Plaza in Haiphong.
Vinh Trung will have 6,000sqm of office space and 108 condominium and serviced apartments for lease, the first product of its kind in the city where demand is on the rise on the back of stronger foreign investment.
“We expect the Japanese community to reach up to 100 businessmen by the end of the year,” said Matsumura Naoji, an expert the Japan External Trade Organization in Danang.
As no serviced apartments are available in Danang at the moment, expatriates look for alternatives in townhouses and villas with monthly rent ranging from $250 to $2,500 and hotel monthly alternatives from $450 to $3,000.
When Vinh Trung apartments open two years later its monthly rent is expected between $900 to $2,500.
Vinh Trung will charge monthly rent of $14 to $20 for the office space, a market which remains small with total 19,600sqm available by the end of this year. The stock will be doubled when Hoang Anh Plaza, Softech and Indochina Riverside Towers open in the next few years.
Other developers are moving in, including VinaCapital intending to build a complex of shopping, residential, hotel, office and international school to the cost of $200 million. Korean firm Daewon recently reached an agreement to build a $300 million golf, residential and commercial area while Indochina Capital is investing $25 million in a mixed-use development.
Duc Manh plans to develop a four-star, 120-room hotel and 12,000sqm shopping complex next to Vinh Trung.
Minh said Danang would be built into the economic, cultural centre and transport hub for the central region with heavy investment in infrastructure projects such as roads, bridges and airport.



No. 791/December 11-17, 2006