The quarterly report is a basis for building a database on housing and local property market because information about those factors is unclear, according to Ha.

The ministry will follow the local market and implement a plan to review the market, forecasting market trends in the medium term and proposing solutions to ensure the health of the property market.

Director of Housing and Real Estate Market Management Department Nguyen Trong Ninh said the ministry aimed to complete a project on economic security in housing and real estate market to submit to the Prime Minister in the third quarter this year.

The social housing programme for low-income people in urban areas and workers in industrial parks has so far supplied 34 per cent of a total of 12.5 million sq.m that needs to be completed by 2020.

The programme must produce the remaining of 8.26 million sq.m by 2020 but it faced difficulties in mobilising capital for the construction, Ninh said.

Ha said solutions were needed to develop social housing products, cheap commercial apartments and rental apartments to complete goals on social housing. The solutions should focus on supply and financial support for buyers.

In the first half of this year, the construction industry had 8,711 newly-established enterprises, accounting for 13 per cent of national newly established enterprises. Of which, there were 4,014 real estate trading companies, a year on year increase of 22 per cent.

The real estate market attracted considerable domestic and foreign investment capital, including foreign direct investment (FDI) worth US$6.6 billion. The FDI capital accounted for 18.6 per cent of total FDI to the nation, ranking second after the manufacturing and processing industry.

All property projects attracted total capital of VND4.8 quadrillion ($206 billion). Outstanding loans for real estate projects by the first quarter of this year reached VND462 trillion.

Construction activity grew at 7.85 per cent compared to the same period of 2018 and the growth of trading real estate products increased by 4.43 per cent. Average housing area nationwide is about 24.25 sq.m of floor per person, a year on year increase of 0.25 sq.m.

Ha said although the construction industry's growth was quite good, it did not meet its targets in the first half of this year. In fact, construction of some real estate projects, especially in Ha Noi and HCM City, were delayed, leading to a reduced supply. Property prices in some areas also increased rapidly.

If those situations were not resolved, they would harm the property market, he said. — VNS