Vietnam for Garden City developments

Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation Director General, Stuart Kenny, was in Hanoi in late November, to speak at a high level conference on the potential for Garden City developments in parts of Vietnam.

The visit followed on from successful conferences in previous years in Japan and there is already interest from China in a conference there late in 2005.

Stuart Kenny commented, "The visit to Vietnam was very encouraging in that the structure of Government there is one with a few, key, Ministerial decision makers. They were well represented at the conference and expressed great interest in the Garden City 'model' as a means of meeting the huge challenges they face in building sustainable communities.

"Vietnam has a head start compared with many countries with not-dissimilar ambitions, due to the fact that land ownership is in the public sector.The challenge they face....but it is surmountable.... is in devising the methodology to entice the huge private sector investment needed to develop the new communities. Certainly the poverty of the public sector demands that a workable risk/reward relationship is found with the private sector."

The picture shows Heritage Foundation Director General, Stuart Kenny, addressing the international conference in Hanoi.