As the economic hub of the whole country, Ho Chi Minh City located in the Southern Key Economic Zone (KEZ) contributes strongly to the future “Diamond Octagon” of Vietnam. Therefore, attracting young and professional manpowers is one of the top priorities to sustain socio-economic development.
Recently, in a meeting with the southern provinces, PM Nguyen Xuan Phuc stated: “Ho Chi Minh City and seven provinces including Ba Ria – Vung Tau, Dong Nai, Binh Duong, Tay Ninh, Binh Phuoc, Tien Giang and Long An will become the new “Diamond Octagon”, bringing prosperity to Vietnam to reach regional level.
The growth of Ho Chi Minh City is not only driven by big corporations but also hundreds of thousands of small and medium enterprises. This is the goal of the SOUTHERN INDUSTRIAL BELT to become the “leading engine” with dynamics and breakthroughs. With tens of thousands of factories and businesses, mainly domestical ones, the outlying districts of Binh Chanh, Binh Tan and Tan Phu have created strong and sustainable development for the region, connecting the city with the Mekong Delta provinces.
The industries will be interconnected and naturally interwoven on the law of supply and demand to create the harmonious complement. This connection will all come through the key ports located in the southern part of the city as the convergent point for technology transfer, production patterns, supply of resources, logistics and transportation.
Especially, Binh Chanh area, with the development of inter-regional transport infrastructure, logistics center around Tan Kien station, connects the city to the southwestern region via the high-speed train and Metro 3A that are taking shape, alongside important economic key ports. In the near future, there will be thousands of Vietnamese enterprises, factories, and research centers growing with great potential in this place.
The development in the southern industrial belt in general, and Binh Chanh area in particular, will attract large investment capital and high quality human resources to serve operation and development. Trained workers, engineers, technical experts, leaders and supervisors from home and abroad will gather here, helping create a new face for a vibrant economic region, and one of the most innovative areas of the country.
Along with the booming industrial development is the importance of investment in social infrastructure, such as housing for workers, engineers, experts; together with school systems, relaxation, entertainment, shopping, health care, and services facilities for daily life. The synchronous development of social infrastructure in a new economic belt will create big attraction for a strong workforce to enable production, trade and services.
Social housing – a push for the southern industrial belt
Singapore, a country with a narrow and small land bank, has successfully built concentrated housing areas with high density and full of public facilities to meet the needs of the people for living, learning, shopping, and entertaining. The buildings have the advantage of being located along public transport routes which are convenient for traveling.
In Ho Chi Minh City, the demand for affordable housing is very large, but in the 2016-2019 period, only about 14 social housing projects with 10,255 units were put into use, while the real demand was 10 times bigger: about 134,000 units.
It’s understandable to say that affordable social housing is becoming much more “thirsted for” in Ho Chi Minh City, being an important role in promoting regional connectivity, creating a driving force for development of the southern industrial production belts, especially for large production centers such as Binh Tan and Binh Chanh areas.
However, until now, the land bank available in Ho Chi Minh City for social housing is very limited, and there is also difficulty in finding the investors willing to spend a large amount of capital for social infrastructure and synchronous transport infrastructure to build a model social housing area, to meet the need of booming development of Saigon South’s economy.
