A corner of the VSIP Bac Ninh industrial and urban park with full basic infrastructure. (Photo: VNA) Hanoi(VNA) – Foreign capital continued flowing to industrial real estate via mergersand acquisitions (M&A) in five months of this year, particularly in Hanoiand Ho Chi Minh City.
Singapore’sBoustead Projects, whose affiliate BP-Vietnam Development recently signed an optionagreement with Khai Toan Group (KTG) to buy a 49 percent stake in KTG &Boustead JSC, hailedVietnam as one of the fastest-growing economies in the world with idealbusiness environment for production and logistics development.
Via its affiliatesand joint ventures, Boustead Projects established partnership with KTG to buy Boustead& KTG Industrial Management Company Ltd (BKIM) and proposed acquiring a 49percent stake in KTG Industrial Bac Ninh Development JSC.
The KTG and Boustead Industrial Logistics JSC (KBIL)is expected to become a leading fund in Vietnam for logistics and industrialproperty development. It will hold 13 real estate seed assets based inindustrial parks (IPs) in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City and plan for furtherexpansion via M&A.
Earlier, Hong Kong’s ESR Cayman Limited and BW Industrial DevelopmentJSC announced the establishment of a joint venture to develop and own My Phuoc4 IP in the north of Ho Chi Minh City. Once completed, it will sit on a site ofaround 240,000 sq.m in service of logistics and light industrial facilities.
Jeffrey Shen and Stuart Gibson, co-foundersand CEOs of ESR Cayman Limited, said industrial and logistics property in Vietnam is at premature age, making the country one of the most promisingmarkets in Southeast Asia which benefits from favourable macro-economic factors, including high and stable economic growth, increasing income,emergence of the middle-income class, rapid urbanisation and upgradedinfrastructure.
As of the late May, a joint venture between Vietnam’sSEA Logistic Partners (SLP) and GLP China Holdings Ltd purchased fiveindustrial land projects covering nearly 700,000 sq.m in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City.
Kent Yang, founding partner of the SLP, also toldof a plan to invest some 1 billion USD in logistics real estate across Vietnamin the next 3-4 years.
Amid the fourth wave of COVID-19 pandemic,foreign investment in Vietnam still flourished, reaching around 14 billion USDin five months of this year, up 0.8 percent annually.
Realestate was the third largest source of FDI attraction with 1.05 billion USD, or7.5 percent of the total registered capital. Foreign investors’ capitalcontribution and stake purchase in the field surpassed 248.4 million USD, up13.5 percent year-on-year.
JohnCampbell, head of the Savills Vietnam’s industrial property unit, said thesupply of industrial properties in Vietnam is abundant in the short and mediumterm.
In the first quarter, tens of industrialproperty development projects in 13 cities and provinces were approved.
According to the Ministry of Planning and Investment,there were 370 IPs nationwide as of the first quarter with a total area ofnearly 115,200ha. Of which, 328 are outside economic zones (EZs), 34 in coastalEZs, and eight in border gate EZs./.
