According to the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Construction's Deputy Director Huynh Thanh Khiet, according to the Ho Chi Minh City housing development plan for the 2021-2025 period and the Prime Minister's project "investing in building at least 1 million social housing apartments for low-income people and industrial park workers in the 2021-2030 period", Ho Chi Minh City plans to develop about 26,200 - 35,000 social housing units.

Specifically, Ho Chi Minh City will include 37 projects in its implementation plan. However, up to now, only 1 project has been completed, while the remaining 36 projects include 6 projects under construction and 30 projects have completed legal procedures.

Mr. Huynh Thanh Khiet explained that, with the legal situation and other related issues, from now until 2025, Ho Chi Minh City plans to invest in the construction, completion and use of 13 projects, with a scale of about 12,000 social housing units. The remaining projects are unlikely to be completed and will only stop at the legal completion stage.

Through the Department's review, in Ho Chi Minh City, there are currently 88 projects/land plots planned for investment in social housing construction, of which 18/88 projects are undergoing procedures for investment approval.

The reason for the delay in the social housing program is that it is very difficult to attract investors to build social housing projects as well as exploit the 20% of land fund for social housing in commercial housing projects. In addition, the real estate market is difficult, businesses focus on implementing commercial housing first. Meanwhile, Ho Chi Minh City has no sanctions when investors are slow to implement projects. Therefore, the Department of Construction recommends that the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee direct the Department of Planning and Investment and the Thu Duc City People's Committee to urgently carry out the procedures for approving investment policies for the 18/88 projects that are undergoing the above procedures. The Department of Planning and Architecture urgently reviews and updates the planning of the above projects into the general planning project of Ho Chi Minh City according to the provisions of the Housing Law.

Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee Phan Van Mai also admitted that the progress of the social housing program is too slow, not meeting the plan and needs of workers. In fact, there are projects that initially did not have the right targets, so very few people registered to rent, while the general demand is very high.

Mr. Phan Van Mai emphasized that the program is sluggish because the project's target was wrongly determined from the beginning. If it is only determined to rent to workers working in surrounding industrial parks, it will be very difficult, because workers' income is limited, so they do not rent social housing but choose to rent boarding houses. Therefore, it is possible to expand the target group to civil servants, public employees, and armed forces. The goal of developing social housing by 2025 is to build at least 26,200 units and at most 35,000 units as planned. To do this, the city welcomes and creates conditions for investors to implement the project, but also resolutely strictly handles investors who are not willing and deliberately do not implement the assigned project.