VietNamNet Bridge - Co-working offices are becoming more common in Vietnam, especially in the large cities of Hanoi and HCM City, as they can help businesses save money and improve working conditions.

CBRE said a co-working office for 10 workers in Washington D.C can be rented at $52,000-84,000, which allows 15 percent savings in expenditures compared with a traditional office with rent of $72,000-92,000.

Julie Whelan from CBRE said that co-working offices are an effective working environment that helps people work creatively. 

These are also reasons why co-working offices have been expanding rapidly in Hanoi and HCM City.

In fact, the first co-working office appeared in Vietnam many years ago. In 2006, G-Office, serving as ‘shared office’, was launched at IndoChina Park Building on Nguyen Dinh Chieu street in district 1, HCM City.

At that moment, G-Office only provided simple service packages, such as renting seats and boardrooms, providing administration and accountancy services.

The co-working office model has been developing quietly since then, especially in the last year. 

Co-working offices are becoming more common in Vietnam, especially in the large cities of Hanoi and HCM City, as they can help businesses save money and improve working conditions.

And it once again caught special attention from the public when Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai, during his working visit to Vietnam last year, chose a co-working space for his meeting with Vietnamese entrepreneurs.

US President Barack Obama, during his stay in HCM City in an official visit to Vietnam in 2015 also praised Dreamplex, the co-working space in the city for startups. He spent two hours talking with young entrepreneurs there.

There are many co-working spaces in HCM City, most of which are in the central district 1. These include Start, WORK Saigon, Citihub, TheVentures and Dreamplex with average area of 1,000 square meters. The rent there is not defined based on square meters like traditional offices, but based on the scale and clients’ requirements.

In Hanoi, the best known co-working offices are Regus Center in Hoan Kiem district, Elite Business Center (Thanh Xuan district), THT Center (Cau Giay district), CEO Suite (Ba Dinh) and Toong (Tay Ho). Meanwhile, UP in Hai Ba Trung district is expected to debut in the fourth quarter of the year.

Startups and small businesses are not the only ones interested in co-working spaces. A recent survey conducted by CBRE showed that 40 percent of large businesses are considering leasing offices of this type.

One of the reasons is that the offices offer large comfortable spaces which can improve working conditions. 

Thanh Lich