“Transport Infrastructure is the Biggest Bottleneck for the Real Estate Market”

The NAI Asian Pacific Regional Meeting 2025 brought together prominent leaders in the global real estate industry.

During the discussion “The CRE Awaking: Vietnam’s Developer Moment,” Mr. Lucas Ignatius Loh Jen Yuh, CEO of Nam Long Group, shared the company’s evolution. With over 30 years of experience, Nam Long began as a construction company and later ventured into real estate development, now creating integrated urban areas with a vision and local planning.

Nam Long’s integrated township model includes commercial real estate, such as retail, offices, and tourism, along with community amenities. The company closely monitors the trend of population decentralization and develops satellite towns around Ho Chi Minh City.

However, facing increased market competition, the company recognizes the need for change and new directions to generate new revenue streams in the long term. Nam Long will diversify its investment portfolio to build an ecosystem supporting these townships as they progress to the next stage of development.

Mr. Lucas acknowledges the existing infrastructure barriers in the Vietnamese real estate market. For example, traveling a short distance can take a significant amount of time, hindering the market’s development toward decentralization between the city center and peripheral urban areas.

“We cannot have townships on the outskirts of Ho Chi Minh City with a 3 to 4-hour daily commute to the city center, even though the distance is only about 50km,” Mr. Lucas emphasized. “Transportation infrastructure is the biggest limitation for Vietnam’s real estate market.”

He pointed out the constant traffic congestion in Ho Chi Minh City, home to over ten million people. In contrast, real estate in polycentric cities or suburban areas worldwide is attractive due to efficient inter-regional connectivity.

Sharing this view is Mr. Paul Tonkes, Deputy Director of Indochina Kajima, a company developing residential, industrial, and hotel real estate in various provinces of Vietnam. Mr. Paul highlights transportation as a significant challenge for today’s industrial real estate market in the country.

According to Mr. Paul, the market is currently divided into two tiers: Tier 1 in major cities and Tier 2 in adjacent provinces. Tier 1 has better transportation links to industrial parks and more services than Tier 2. However, the infrastructure in Tier 1 cities has not received commensurate investment and upgrades. This lack of investment in technical infrastructure and congested transportation have hindered the development of Tier 1 cities.

In Tier 2 regions, where industrial parks are booming, the infrastructure is still inadequate. While Vietnam is a bright spot in the global supply chain, infrastructure barriers and traffic congestion have impeded progress due to time delays. The challenge is evident in the time-consuming process of transporting goods from factories to seaports, even over short distances, primarily due to traffic jams.

Therefore, Mr. Paul emphasizes the need for better transportation infrastructure planning and development in Vietnam to unshackle the growth of industrial parks. This improvement will attract foreign investors to set up factories in the country.