HCM City (VNA) - The Ho ChiMinh City People’s Committee has instructed relevant authorities to developsoftware that will allow the public to obtain land-use plans on their mobilephones as a means to avoid the land “fever” that occurs periodically.

“The recent land fever in HCM City has occurred because of severalreasons and the city needs to respond immediately to stop it,” Le Van Khoa,Vice Chairman of the People’s Committee, told a recent meeting to review thephenomenon.

He pointed out four causes for it: a lot of infrastructures wasbuilt recently, directly affecting prices of land nearby; media reports aboutsome big plans in Can Gio and Cu Chi districts; last year the city rescindedmany public works that had been on paper for many years, preventing people frombuying or selling the lands earmarked for the projects, and prices shot up as aresult; and speculation.

“We must publicly announce all land-use master plans from communeto district levels and all should be accessible by mobile phone.”

He instructed the Department of Planning Plan and Architecture inco-operation with Thu Duc district and district 12 to ready the software by theend of this year.

He confirmed that the city did not have any plans to upgrade Nha Be,Binh Chanh and Hoc Mon districts into downtown districts.

“We have the Government’s decision to build Can Gio Bridge toreplace the Binh Khanh ferry, but from policy to reality takes a very longtime."

He was implying that people should not buy land thinking thebridge construction would push up land prices.

“The city People’s Committee did not approve the Marina Cityproject in Trung An commune, Cu Chi district, as was rumoured, not even theroad along the river in the commune,” he said.

The People’s Committee has instructed all districts to improveland management and stop people from carving up lands into plots for sellingwithout approval.

It also called on the State Bank of Vietnam’s Branch in HCM Cityto instruct all banks to tighten lending to the property sector.

Tat Thanh Cang, Deputy Secretary of the city Party Committee,said: “The city Party Committee will issue instructions for the real estatemarket and guide related authorities in making land-related notifications.

“City spokespersons should make official announcements immediatelyif any problems crop up and not wait for meetings because if we provideaccurate information the media will help the public know about them.”

He also agreed to publicise the land use master plan in everycommune and district and called on relevant authorities to create favourableconditions for the public to know about it.

“All HCM City socio-economic, urban and infrastructure developmentmust follow the approved master plan.”

The Party Committee would get the police to investigate those whospread rumours to benefit from them.-VNA