Soaring Land Prices in Local Areas: What’s the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment’s Stance?

At the November 2025 regular press conference held by the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment on the morning of December 4, Mr. Mai Van Phan, Deputy Director of the Land Management Department, stated that according to regulations, local authorities must develop and issue land price lists to be applied from January 1, 2026. As of now, several localities have already published their 2026 land price lists.

Regarding the information that land prices in some localities are higher than commonly perceived, Mr. Phan noted that this is merely an initial observation.

One crucial criterion when establishing land price lists is that they must align with market conditions.

Therefore, it is unacceptable for local authorities to arbitrarily lower land prices significantly below market rates. Land prices must closely reflect market conditions and adhere to other specified criteria to ensure accuracy and fairness.

According to Mr. Mai Van Phan, the development of land price lists serves not only market transactions but also various other purposes, with the primary goal of securing state budget revenue.

When issuing land price lists, local authorities have carefully assessed and considered all factors. Land prices are not solely based on market transaction values but must also meet all regulatory criteria to ensure accurate application from January 1, 2026.

Regarding the implementation results of the Wealth and Clean National Land Database Campaign under Plan 515 dated August 31, 2025, the Deputy Director of the Land Management Department, Ministry of Agriculture and Environment, reported that the campaign was executed in 2025 and concluded on November 30, 2025.

The campaign’s initial goal was to clean and synchronize data for 49.7 million land plots. By the end, the total data updated and synchronized by local authorities to the central system reached 61 million land plots, surpassing the target. Approximately 567,000 condominium units have also been updated and synchronized with the Ministry of Agriculture and Environment and are currently being linked to population and national databases.

Of the total updated data, about 23.5 million land plots have been enriched, cleaned, and fully processed to ensure accuracy and synchronization. Over 500,000 condominium units have been verified and fully synchronized according to standards.

“Thus, the campaign has exceeded both quantity and quality targets, laying a solid foundation for land management and integration with the national database in the coming years,” Mr. Phan reported.

Mr. Phan also mentioned that during implementation, approximately 37.6 million land plots are still being processed based on field information and management records. These plots will continue to be accurately and thoroughly cleaned to ensure data integrity.

Land user data has been verified three times by the Ministry of Public Security using citizen data. The Ministry of Agriculture and Environment is urging local authorities to further clean and cross-check data to finalize this group of land plots.