Official land prices in HCM City will go up by an average of 20 per cent next year, according to the latest figures released by the municipal People's Committee.

The real estate market will not show signs of recovery until the end of next year, Viet Nam Contractors Association vice chairman Nguyen Quoc Hiep told the Customs newspaper.

Real estate experts said that 2008 proves to be the strangest ever year so far as it has been witnessing the market decrease continuously. This is really quite different from previous years, when the prices rose up and up, and did not decrease.

The property market has seen the individual home segment inching up toward the year-end but the falling prices have yet to stimulate appetite for apartments mostly under construction in HCMC.

Plans to build a 17-storey commercial building and supermarket on the site of a once famous cemetery and then the December 19 Market have upset many Ha Noi residents.

The real estate market will not show signs of recovery until the end of next year, Viet Nam Contractors Association vice chairman Nguyen Quoc Hiep told the Customs newspaper.

Vietnam will have to open its retail market as of January 1, 2009. Meanwhile, state management agencies still have not released necessary guiding documents yet.

Thousands of square meters of public land in HCM City that authorities consider as being used wastefully will be appropriated for building public amenities.

Construction began yesterday on a major information technology project, the Viet Nam-Japan Tri Thuc Park (VIJA Brain Park), the second of its kind in HCM City.

Singapore's property developer Mapletree Investment will start building a high-class business park costing US$400 million in the southern province of Binh Duong in mid-2009, the company said upon receiving an investment certificate yesterday.

Construction of a 20 million USD eco-tourism complex in Tan Phu township, Dong Phu district, the southern province of Binh Phuoc, began on Dec 22th.