Billion-dollar tower on prime land in Hanoi under inspection

The Government Inspectorate has just issued a plan to conduct specialized inspections of projects and works with difficulties, obstacles, delays, long-term backlogs, low efficiency, and risks of loss and waste.

145 projects out of nearly 900 projects subject to inspection are directly inspected by the Government Inspectorate. The Ministry of Construction has 8 projects subject to inspection. Among them is the Vicem Tower project invested by Vicem. The project has a scale of more than 0.8 hectares, with a total investment of 2,743 billion VND.

The trillion-dollar Vicem tower has been abandoned for many years.

The project is located at Lot 10E6, Cau Giay New Urban Area (Tu Liem, Hanoi ), on Ring Road 3, next to Keangnam building. The project started construction in May 2011, with a scale of 31 floors above ground and 4 basements.

The initial goal was to build a headquarters for Vicem and its member units, along with a conference hall and commercial service area. Although the rough construction was completed in August 2015, the project has been stalled for nearly 10 years.

In 2018, Vicem reported to the competent authority to request approval to transfer the project to divest capital from non-core business sectors. However, this could not be implemented after many years due to problems with investment and land laws or the arrangement and handling of real estate assets belonging to state-owned enterprises.

By mid-2023, the corporation had requested the authorities to allow the project to be revived to exploit this abandoned tower. The Government then asked the Ministry of Construction to direct Vicem to continue completing the project. The project was restarted in March 2025.

Regarding this tower, in early March, the Department of Investigation Police on Corruption, Economic Crimes, and Smuggling decided to prosecute 4 defendants, former leaders and officials of Vicem, for the crime of "Violating regulations on management and use of State assets, causing loss and waste". The former leaders of Vicem caught up in the law include: Le Van Chung - former Chairman of the Board of Members; Nguyen Ngoc Anh - former General Director; Du Ngoc Long - former Director of the Project Management Board; Hoang Ngoc Hieu - former Head of the Appraisal Department.

Recently, in the approved plan of the Ministry of Construction on production, business and construction investment in 2025 of the parent company - Vicem, the Ministry of Construction requested to focus on implementing investment and completing the Vicem Tower according to the approval of the Prime Minister and the direction of the Ministry of Construction.