Enhancing the legal framework for commercial service land is crucial to realize its full potential, assert experts.
Vietnam's commercial service land, a growing and critical economic resource, is where vibrant economic and social centers are formed. This land, which has doubled in size over the past decade, plays a significant role in the country's socio-economic development. However, challenges persist that need to be addressed to fully unlock its potential.
The current challenges mainly involve legal and policy bottlenecks, land price instability, complex land acquisition processes, and risks related to land use rights. These issues have caused uncertainty for both foreign and domestic investors, hindering the full potential of commercial service land.
The existing legal framework for commercial service land is incomplete and does not fully unlock its economic potential, despite commercial land area doubling to nearly 50,000 hectares in the last decade. There are significant bottlenecks from land laws and zoning restrictions that limit how investors can develop projects, particularly in commercial housing. Removal of government fixed land price controls has caused volatile and sometimes excessive land price increases, complicating affordable housing and investment planning, especially for small- and medium-sized developers.
Issues persist around unclear land titles, transferability limits, regulatory changes mid-project, and the risk of state reclamation if land use conditions aren’t met, creating operational uncertainty for investors.
To address these challenges, solutions center on improving the legal framework, piloting new land use schemes, modernizing land management, and enhancing transparency and investor protections. The government has introduced Resolution 171/2024 and Decree 75/2025, piloting mechanisms allowing certain commercial housing projects on non-residential land under specified conditions, easing historic restrictions. Vietnam is also implementing land law reforms including digital land registries, longer lease terms, and stricter zoning enforcement to enhance transparency, reduce bureaucracy, and attract foreign direct investment.
Calls for more fair and transparent land price mechanisms aim to stabilize market fluctuations and ensure affordability for both developers and end-users, addressing the adverse effects of rapid price surges. The development of a national data center on the real estate market is important to ensure transparency and accuracy.
In summary, while Vietnam’s commercial service land is a growing and critical economic resource, current challenges primarily stem from outdated or incomplete legal policies, volatile land prices, and procedural complexity. The government is addressing these through legislative reform, pilot projects to relax land-use restrictions, modernization of land administration, and efforts to improve pricing mechanisms to sustainably support investment and socio-economic growth. The President of the Vietnam Real Estate Association, Nguyen Van Khoi, believes that commercial service land has significant potential, creating significantly added value for the economy, promoting production, creating jobs, contributing to the State budget, and forming vibrant economic centers.
- The growth and development of Vietnam's commercial service land, a critical economic resource, is impacted by a variety of challenges such as legal bottlenecks, land price instability, complex processes for land acquisition, and risks associated with land use rights.
- The existing legal framework for commercial service land is inadequate and fails to fully capitalize on its economic potential, despite the land area growing to nearly 50,000 hectares over the past decade.
- Unclear land titles, transferability limits, mid-project regulatory changes, and the risk of state reclamation contribute to operational uncertainty for both foreign and domestic investors.
- To overcome these challenges, the government is focusing on improving the legal framework, piloting new land use schemes, modernizing land management, and enhancing transparency and investor protections.
- The development of a national data center on the real estate market is essential to ensure transparency and maintain the accuracy of land-related data.
- Calls for fair and transparent land price mechanisms are made to stabilize market fluctuations and ensure affordability for all, addressing the negative effects of rapid price surges.
- The President of the Vietnam Real Estate Association, Nguyen Van Khoi, believes that commercial service land has immense potential, adding significant value to the economy by promoting production, creating jobs, contributing to the State budget, and forming vibrant economic centers.
