Social housing apartments of Nam Long Residential Area in HCM City’s District 7. The city plans to finish 13 projects providing 12,000 apartments by 2025. — VNA/VNS Photo

HCM CITY — Social housing development in Việt Nam is facing significant delays, particularly in major cities such as HCM City and Hà Nội.

As of mid-July, the country completed 79 projects with about 40,700 apartments, just 10 per cent of the 2025 targets, according to a Ministry of Construction report.

Hà Nội needs to build 18,700 social housing apartments by the end of 2025 but has only completed 5,200, achieving 37 per cent of its goal, according to the report.

Similarly, HCM City aims to construct 26,200 social housing apartments by the end of next year but has only finished over 1,200, reaching 21 per cent of its target.

Several provinces, including Thái Nguyên, Ninh Bình, Nam Định, Quảng Bình, Thừa Thiên-Huế, Bạc Liêu and Cà Mau, have demand for social housing but lack implementation plans, according to the report.

Conversely, some provinces have exceeded their social housing development targets such as Khánh Hòa (104 per cent), Thanh Hóa (74 per cent), and Hậu Giang (53 per cent).

Other localities are seeking investment for social housing projects such as provinces of Bắc Ninh (16 projects), Thanh Hóa (10 projects) and Đồng Nai (eight projects), and Hải Phòng City (nine projects), according to the report.

Proposed credit package

The construction ministry is collaborating with the central bank to study a new State-funded credit package of VNĐ30 trillion ($1.2 billion) for social housing, which will be managed by the Vietnam Social Policy Bank.

The package will replace the current ineffective VNĐ120 trillion plan, which relies solely on commercial banks.

Currently, the existing package has seen sluggish disbursement, with only about 1 per cent utilised in a year.

The new funding will focus on low-income homebuyers, enabling loans for purchasing and renting social housing.

It will be sourced from government bonds and local budgets, with an emphasis on prioritising social housing loans.

The Government has reiterated its commitment to social housing development with an aim to build at least one million social housing units across Việt Nam by 2030. — VNS