Following the master plan for Ho Chi Minh city until 2025, the city will now be expanded to the west and southwest, in addition to the three directions previously agreed upon in the 1998 master plan: east, south, north and northwest.

The master plan, jointly drawn up by Ho Chi Minh City Urban Planning Institute and Japanese consultant Nikken Seikei, envisions a new city closely linked to neighbouring urban areas to reduce pressure on the city’s increasingly crowded city centre.

The new metropolis will be divided into three regions with Ho Chi Minh City as the nucleus of the new urban zone, a new, expanded central area and a suburban area.

The scheme features various plans to upgrade the current city centre and will take into account preserving the landscape, historical sites and the city’s architectural heritage, as well as reorganizing the traffic system clearing the slums along the city’s canals and reducing pollution to improve the environment. It also recommends building a green belt around the city and planting trees along the city’s highways.

Besides building parks, as suggested in the 1998 plan, the new scheme proposes the planting of “green” rows of trees along the banks of the Sai Gon, Dong Nai and Nha Be rivers, the building of new green belts in Hoc Mon district to the north of the city, in Binh Chanh district to the west and in Nha Be district to the south.

Residential parks and service centres will be developed in the heart of the city as well as in four satellite regions in all four directions, including a north-eastern urban area in District 9 and Thu Duc district, as well as one in Hiep Phuoc residential park in Nha Be district.

The new plans not only provide guidelines on infrastructure development, traffic control and waste management but also stipulate the allocation of land, regulating the height of buildings, and other urban planning regulations and plus measures to control pollution.

Ho Chi Minh City is the largest economic centre in Vietnam, covering over 2,000 square kilometres and has a population of 6.7 million people.