Vietnam’s real estate tempts Asian investors

Illustrative photo (Photo: bnews.vn)

Hanoi (VNA) – Real estate attracted the second largest volume of foreign direct investment with 34 new projects worth 1 billion USD in the first nine months of this year, or 6.1 percent of the total, according to the Ministry of Planning and Investment’s Overseas Investment Agency. 

CB Richard Ellis (CBRE) Director of Research, Consulting and Asset Management Services Nguyen Hoai An said Vietnam has been extremely attractive to Asian investors, especially those from Japan, the Republic of Korea and Singapore, at least over the past decade. 

Investors consider market potential, penetration opportunity and capital safety when deciding to invest in any overseas property market, she said. 

According to her, Japanese investors have shifted their interest from industrial properties to housing and offices over the past two years. They tend to buy up existing projects or start new ones from scratch. 

In another perspective, real estate services provider Savills Vietnam said not only housing and commercial office buildings, industrial real estate has also become valuable. 

It pointed out that the rising labour cost in China is putting pressure on labour-intensive industries such as garment, footwear and mechanical engineering, which leads to the departure of foreign firms to seek better manufacturing conditions, especially in labour cost. 

Vietnam is emerging as a bright spot for investment thanks to its waterway and road connectivity with China, it said, adding that the country’s membership to ASEAN and a number of free trade agreements has attracted a surging amount of FDI, especially since the conclusion of negotiations on the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the EU-Vietnam Free Trade Agreement in late 2015.-VNA