Vietnam ’s capital city is working on a plan that will zone off 70 percent ofits natural territory for tree and water space by 2050 to become a green,civilised and modern city.

Deputy Minister of Construction Nguyen DinhToan said at the presentation of the draft scheme on March 18 that it aimed toprovide the best living environment including quality entertainment services.

The plan will also serve the capital’s long-term strategy to turn itselfinto an international metropolis of tourism and business—first in the region,and then in the world, Toan added.

The Director of the Rural and UrbanPlanning and Architect Institute, Ngo Trung Hai, explained that the green systemincludes municipal rivers and lakes, the natural reserves of Ba Vi, Huong Tichand Soc Son mountains, productive agricultural areas and traditional craftvillages, and cultural relics sites.

The scheme calls for establising agreen corridor along the Day, Tich and Ca Lo rivers in an effort to control therampant urbanisation of nuclear and satellite cities.

The green corridorwill have a north south road and three ecological townships.

The schemewill be regularly updated with Hanoi ’s latest statistics such as a recentcalculation of Hanoi ’s population that shows a 20 percent reduction over theprevious forecast for 2050.

More specifically, the capital plans to keepits population at or below 9.1 million by 2030, which will fluctuate between10.5 and 10.7 million by 2050.

The population density in the four oldinner precincts will be reduced from current 33,300 people/ sq. k. to 23,000 by2050.

Municipal People’s Committee Chairman Nguyen The Thao askedplanning designers to consider architectural options that can attract citizensfrom the centre of Hanoi to satellite cities.

Planning designers consistof the consultant PPJ, a joint venture of Perkino Eastman from the US , Posco E& C and Jina of the Republic of Korea , the Rural and Urban Planning andArchitecture Institute under the Ministry of Construction and the Hanoi UrbanPlanning Institute./.