Ho Chi Minh City plans major housing boost

Ho Chi Minh city illustration photo

In addition, the city aims to eliminate temporary housing and increase the rate of concrete houses to more than 75 per cent by 2015.

It will also complete the task of relocating 13,000 households living on canals, rebuild 30 old apartment buildings with total new housing area of 350,000sqm for 6,500 households, and build about 10,000 houses for low-income people.

By 2015, the city aims to meet the housing demand for city residents, improve housing quality and develop a housing fund for low-income earners, including state civil servants, state employees, workers and students.

These targets were announced by the city People's Committee at a June 17 seminar that reviewed the implementation of the city's housing policies and housing development programme in the 2006-10 period, and set tasks for the 2011-15 period.

In the 2006-10, the city built 33.34 million sqm of housing, exceeding the target by 4 per cent.

The average housing space per person also increased from 10.3sqm in 2006 to 14.3sqm in 2010.

As of the end of last year, the city had 1.35 million sqm of boarding houses for workers, providing accommodation for 433,000 workers.

Of VND257 trillion ($12.2 billion) invested in housing over the past five years, the city's budget accounted for only 1.69 per cent compared with households at 37.8 per cent; and companies with 60.5 per cent, according to the city Department of Construction.

Vu Van Hoa, head of the Ho Chi Minh City Industrial Parks and Export Processing Zones Authority, said the city's industrial parks (IPs) and export processing zones (EPZs) would have nine housing projects to accomodate 24,000 tenants by the end of this year.

Several companies in IPs and EPZs were investing $2-3 million each to build boarding houses for workers, Hoa said.

Participants at the seminar suggested that the city should have more preferential policies to support investment in boarding houses for workers, including providing soft loans with a longer term of up to 10-12 years, compared to the current term of seven years.

Nguyen Tan Ben, director of the Department of Construction, said since 2009 the price of houses has fallen slightly and is now stable, but still relatively high compared to the income of city residents.

Le Hoang Quan, chairman of the city People's Committee, said over the past five years the city has been placed on the list of 10 cities worldwide with the highest real estate prices.

Quan said the price of real estate in the city has risen far too much.

He asked relevant departments and agencies to redress the city real estate market imbalances and not allow prices of real estate to rise significantly.

For the next five years, the city's housing programme will continue to be considered a key, strategic programme, he said.