Addressing the conference, Deputy Prime Minister Nguyen Sinh Hung said urban development plays an important role in the process of national construction and helps Vietnam achieve its target of becoming a developed industrial country. He urged experts and urban managers to seek more scientific ways of developing urban areas and enlisting the participation of the whole society.

Mr Hung highlighted the importance of matching population size to infrastructure, calling for efforts to avoid excessive concentrations of population in major cities.

The Deputy Prime Minister asked the Ministry of Construction and relevant agencies to pay greater attention to strategic planning and human resources training to bring Vietnamese cities and towns up to international standards.

At the conference, Minister of Construction Nguyen Hong Quan said that urban development has made great progress over the past 10 years and has contributed significantly to the country’s industrialization and modernization process. The national urban system, now comprising 754 cities and towns, has grown by 30 percent in the period.

Vietnam has invested considerably in urban beautification, creating quite a few high-quality architectural works. In addition, it has tried to renovate or preserve urban architectural heritage and to improve living standards in cities and towns, reflected in better infrastructure, more living space per capita, and higher rates of city-dwellers with access to clean water and urban lighting.

Vietnam has attempted to revise and modify its laws governing urban construction and development, paving the way for sustainable urban development.

However, the heated growth rate of urbanization has caused overloading of urban technical infrastructure. Urban management has also failed to match the pace of urban development in terms of cultural growth. All these matters involve many factors from state management agencies to businesses, from development investors to the city-dwellers themselves.

Also at the conference, the Ministry of Construction announced a Prime Minister Decision approving the upgrade of an national urban system from 2009 to 2020 and an adjustment of the master plan for developing the Vietnamese urban system until 2025 with a vision toward 2050.