Dong Nai enjoys building boom

The real estate market in the southern Dong Nai Province near HCM City seems to be immune to the nationwide downturn that began last year, with many large projects continuing to be developed.

The real estate market in the southern Dong Nai Province near HCM City seems to be immune to the nationwide downturn that began last year, with many large projects continuing to be developed.

In fact, investments from both foreign and domestic sources in property has increased sharply in the last two years.

In 2008, when the national market entered the deep freeze, investors continued to pump money into the Dong Nai property market – foreigners brought in US$3 billion and domestic investors $1.3 billion.

Bien Hoa town and Nhon Trach and Long Thanh Districts were their preferred destinations.Nhon Trach attracted many large projects, including the $400 million Hoa Sen—Dai Phuoc new urban area by Vina Dai Phuoc Company, a joint venture between VinaCapital Group and Development Investment –Construction Company.

The provincial administration recently signed a memorandum of understanding with Malaysia’s Berjaya Land Berhad for the latter to build a new modern urban area on 600ha in Nhon Trach. The investment is estimated at billions of dollars.

According to Nhon Trach urban management office, the district now has more than 100 residential-area projects, many of them under construction. Dong Nai remains attractive to property investors because of its well-developed and handy transport system, a representative of the Viet Nam Real Estate Company, said.

It lies in a major transport hub in the southern Key Economic Area with superb road, water, rail, and air links.

Its transport system is set for further improvement by 2020 with construction of a HCMC-Ba Ria-Vung Tau highway, a rail link between Bien Hoa and Vung Tau, and the Long Thanh-Bien Hoa-Dau Giay and Dau Giay-Da Lat expressways.

Construction of the Long Thanh International Airport at a cost of $6.6 billion is under way. The airport, due to open in 2015, is expected to handle 80 to 100 million passengers a year.

The port and water transport systems are also being upgraded to accommodate large vessels.

But above all, the province has great demand for housing. By June last year, it had 27 industrial parks employing more than 320,000 workers. Of them, over 60 per cent are immigrants in need of housing.

Nguyen Thi Thanh Huong, director of the Tin Nghia Real Estate Trading Floor, said by 2010 Dong Nai would have to build an additional 7 million sq.m of housing to meet the demand.

(Source: VNS)