HCMC - After a long period of being hit by the Covid-19 pandemic, the commercial real estate market in HCMC is gradually becoming livelier. Many commercial spaces covering up to thousands of square meters are being leased by giant retailers.

In mid-January 2022, Con Cung, a chain of retail stores for mothers and babies, launched its 2,000-square-meter shopping center in a seven-story building in District 1, HCMC. Apart from selling mother-and-baby products, the center has a corner to give advice about health and nutrition for mothers-to-be and babies and another corner with entertainment and F&B services for families. Similar to Con Cung, many retailers, local and foreign alike, such as Uniqlo, Muji and The Gioi Di Dong, have opened many large-scale outlets covering up to thousands of square meters in HCMC. Tran Pham Phuong Quyen, retail leasing manager of Savills HCMC, said apart from familiar brands in the Vietnamese market, new players are looking for large spaces. New retailers have high requirements in terms of location, facade, area and display capacity. So, the supply of premises in the downtown area is the most modest. Meanwhile, operational ones want to widen their scales. These lead to a more vibrant commercial real estate market. “The multi-brand retail store business model that needs an area from 350 to 1,000 square meters is expected to develop in the future thanks to the advantage of offering integrated services for shoppers,” Quyen said. Regarding rents, according to the Q4 market report of Savills Vietnam, since the end of last year, many retail space owners, mainly in the downtown area, are no longer applying promotional policies, including discounts of up to 50% in the first month of rent. The offer price in the fourth quarter of 2021 was VND1.15 million a square meter a month.