Foreign investors are planning to expand their operations in Vietnam this year, creating an opportunity for industrial property development despite the COVID-19 pandemic, according to experts.

With COVID-19 and trade tensions driving the shift of production lines from China to Southeast Asia, Vietnam, in particular, seems to have emerged as an attractive destination for investors and manufacturers alike, experts have predicted.

JLL observes that there are hundreds of million dollars waiting to be poured into the market in most segments of real estate.

Additional foreign investment inflows in real estate went up during 2019 while credit in the sector bucked a downward trend, signalling its reduced heavy reliance on bank loans.

Industrial property in the Northern Key Economic Zone (NKEZ) saw strong development in the third quarter of this year, according to Jones Lang LaSalle firm (JLL Viet Nam).

Investors are looking for industrial and logistics assets through joint ventures with local industrial developers and/or acquisition of land and operating real estate, Jones LaSalle Vietnam Co Ltd said in a statement.