Forum targets developing green growth in Vietnam’s urban areas

The Vietnam forum on urban planning and development towards green growth and climate resilience opened in Tam Ky city, Quang Ngai province on August 23.

A corner of Ho Chi Minh City
A corner of Ho Chi Minh City

The two-day forum was jointly held by the Ministry of Construction, the United Nations Human Settlements Programme (UN-Habitat), and the Quang Ngai provincial People’s Committee.

Participants to the event focused their discussion on the efficiency of urban planning and management, current legal norms on urban development, accessibility of urban services, solutions to encourage the private sector to provide infrastructure services, as well as environment protection and climate resilience in urban areas.

According to Deputy Minister of Construction Phan Thi My Linh, research on green growth and climate resilience have shown that urban areas play a specific role in establishing a synergy between economic objectives and environmental ones.

Activities taking place in the areas have resulted in strong impacts on all-round development of each country, she said, adding that economic growth has a strong attachment to urbanisation, while urbanisation creates motivation for economic growth.

Over the past two decades, Vietnam’s urban system has seen positive progress as the urbanisation rate increased from 23.7% in 1999 to 35.7% in 2015, and is targeted to reach 40% by 2020.

However, the rapid urbanisation has also led to shortcomings in land utilisation, urban competitiveness and urban life quality.

In addition, Vietnam is one of the countries most affected by climate change, which may worsen the shortcomings and pose new challenges to urbanisation.