More social housing for workers urged

In the Government Office’s document released on September 5, Dung asked the Ministry of Construction to review the master development planning of industrial and economic zones to ensure that it was in line with urban and housing development.

The development of industrial and economic zones has not paid adequate attention to developing housing for workers, as well as social facilities.

Several industrial and economic zones were poorly built, and have serious shortages of public services, as well as poor environmental standards, which eroded competitiveness in attracting investments.

Dung also asked provincial and municipal People’s Committees to allocate land and raise policies to attract investments in developing social housing projects and social facilities to improve living standards of workers in industrial and economic zones and industrial clusters.

Further, it was recommended that supervision of the development of waste treatment and fire prevention systems at industrial zones be tightened.

Of note, Dung asked the Ministry of Planning and Investment to consider policies for the development of new models for industrial zones, such as ecological zones, supporting zones and industrial service-urban complexes.

According to statistics from the Economic Zones Management Department, as of July there were 316 industrial zones, within a total area of 88,600 hectares in Vietnam, 218 of which were in operation, with an occupancy rate of nearly 70%.

Vietnam had 16 economic zones, within a total area of 15,600 hectares.

As of July, there were more than 3 million labourers working in industrial and economic zones nation-wide. Also, firms at industrial and economic zones contributed nearly 51% of the country’s total export revenue.