The rapid population growth is putting a lot of pressure on housing in Vietnam’s urban areas.

According to Chairman of the Vietnam Urban Development Association Tran Ngoc Chinh, the urbanisation rate in Vietnam is expected to reach 40 percent in 2019 and early 2020. In 1999, the rate stood at only 21.7 percent.

Along with the rapid speed of urbanisation, the average annual population growth rate in urban areas ranges from 2-3.4 percent, which has led to an increasing demand for houses, said Nguyen Tran Nam, former Deputy Minister of Construction and Chairman of the Vietnam Real Estate Association (VNREA).

Experts said that the Ministry of Construction has played an important role in urban development and planning to ease this pressure, with local administrations in new urban areas implementing tasks given.

However, increasing urbanisation in 2018 helped the real estate and construction materials market gain positive growth. The average floor area of houses nationwide was estimated at 24 sq.m per person, up 0.6 sq.m from 2017.

In 2018, Vietnam had roughly 25.5 million households, nearly 65 percent of which were small-scale (two to four family members). The proportion of single-person households made up about 8 percent, but has been increasing rapidly over the past five years.

Nam said this is an important factor in re-orienting the development of real estate products.–VNA