The capital city's legislative body on July 3 unanimously passed a resolution to impose accommodation requirements for people from other provinces wanting permanent residency in the metropolis.

Accordingly, migrants who do not own a house in Hanoi have to prove that the average floor area of their rented accommodation is at least 15sq. m per capita in order to be eligible to apply for permanent residency.

They also have to have lived in Hanoi continuously for at least three years.

The measure is described as a "technical barrier" to curb migration into the already over-populated city. It is the first time accommodation status has been listed among the eligibility criteria.

The provision will be applicable to the city's 10 populous inner districts 10 days after the resolution is adopted and shall be effective until 2015.

Vu Hong Khanh, Deputy Chairman of the municipal People's Committee, the executive branch which drafted the resolution, explained that the criteria were designed to be more stringent for inner districts.

"The migration flow over the recent years has outpaced physical and social infrastructure development, which has led to acute social problems such as chronic traffic jams and overloaded hospitals," he noted.

"We hope that putting up a technical barrier might help curb the migration flow or at least slow it down," he said.

According to statistics from Hanoi Police, the average population density of the capital is nearly 2,200 people per square kilometre, eight times higher than the national figures.

The list of permanent residency criteria is among a number of topics stipulated under the Capital Law which came into effects earlier this month.-VNA