The meeting was held in the wake of last week’s merger of the capital city with neighbouring Ha Tay province, four communes of Hoa Binh province and a district of Vinh Phuc province.

According to Japan-based Arata Isozaki and Netherlands-based Metropolitan Architecture, Hanoi should focus on developing satellite cities to limit the negative effects, such as heavy traffic and pollution, that result from having a very large population.

The Republic of Korea’s Posco E&C and Jina Architect and the US’s Perkins Eastman envisioned a “green” Hanoi and suggested that the city build on 40 percent of its area and devote the remainder to tree planting.

RTKL (Architects Designers Planners Engineers Consultants) from the US suggested that Hanoi build five satellite cities with each city geared towards a specific area like education, health care, tourism and technology. It also emphasized the development of transport infrastructure and natural landscaping in the city.

According to Deputy Minister of Construction Tran Ngoc Chinh, the Prime Minister will select the international consultant after the meeting.