The Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee just announced plans to clear 7,000 hectares of land in the city to make room for 880 development projects.
According to VietnamNet, these include public facilities and infrastructure projects, the majority of which are schools, hospitals, road or canal repairs. Despite long-term investment, many of these projects have been delayed, some for decades, as the city struggles to free up land.
Hoang Minh Tri, deputy head of the HCMC Institute for Development, told the news outlet several of these ventures have been plagued by poor management and limited finances on the part of their investors.
In recent years, the city has often resolved these issues by taking delayed projects away from the principal investor, Tran Trong Tuan, director of the city’s Department of Construction, told VietnamNet. In an effort to protect secondary investors, municipal officials will often seek a new investor to take over the project, however this practice creates further setbacks while the city coordinates new investors for an already-delayed development.
Beyond the internal problems plaguing several of Saigon’s major construction projects, the city is often slow to pay land compensation fees to local residents, causing land acquisition to happen in piecemeal fashion and further delaying constructions.
[Photo via Flickr user Giang Dong Du]
