Dubai’s Emaar Properties and its Vietnamese partner Bitexco Group have been granted approval to build a 427-hectare project in Ho Chi Minh City.
The joint venture is planning to transform an entire island surrounded by the Saigon river in the Binh Thanh district on the eastern side of Ho Chi Minh City, according to The Saigon Times.
Images show that its plans include a pair of Burj Khalifa-inspired towers, a luxury resort, a marina, a recreational cove and several international hotels.
The project will cost about 30.7 trillion Vietnamese Dong (Dh5 billion) to build. The approval covers a 50-year period, but the newspaper report states that construction will take place in three phases, lasting until 2030.
The first, from next year until 2020, covers site clearance and engineering works. The second phase, from 2021 to 2025, involves building the island’s infrastructure and many of its main functions; and the third, from 2026 to 2030, will cover the build-out of the rest of the island.
Approval was granted for the scheme on November 26.
Bitexco Group started out as a textile firm but is now a conglomerate with investments in real estate, hydroelectricity plants, infrastructure, mining and mineral water. According to its website, it employs 1,100 people.
Its property investments to date include The Garden Shopping Centre in Hanoi and the Icon68 shopping centre in Ho Chi Minh. It has also built The One Ho Chi Minh City – a mixed-use scheme containing 55-floor and 48-floor towers made up of offices and hotels – and it owns the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Ho Chi Minh and the JW Marriott in Hanoi.
Emaar has international projects in 10 other markets including Egypt, Turkey, India and Saudi Arabia, where it is the master developer of the $100bn King Abdullah Economic City near Rabigh.
Emaar said that in the first nine months of this year, it earned Dh1.7bn in international revenue, representing 18 per cent of total sales of Dh9.85bn.
The property consultancy Savills said that Vietnam’s economy has had a 20-year boom between 1995 and last year, with GDP increasing ninefold to $185bn last year.
Foreign direct investment in the country has almost trebled to $20.2bn.
This, and increasing rates of urbanisation – to 34 per cent last year, from under 20 per cent in 1995 – has driven demand for all types of property.
The ratings analyst Fitch said that Vietnam’s real GDP grew by 6.5 per cent in the first nine months of this year, up from 5.6 per cent last year, with manufacturing, construction and the services sector driving growth.
Neither Emaar Properties nor Bitexco Group was available for comment.
mfahy@thenational.ae
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