Ho Chi Minh City: Satra Tax Plaza project has more hope of revival after nearly a decade of abandonment

“Golden land” to waste a decade

In early May 2025, Saigon Trading Group (Satra) continued to issue Document No. 214/TCT-HDTV to report to the People's Committee about difficulties with the Satra Tax Plaza Project in District 1 (HCMC).

This project has been planned by Satra since 2006. According to the design, this is a complex of high-end commercial center, class A office and 5-star hotel, with 40 floors, 165 m high, directly connected to the tunnel of metro line 1, with a helipad and a 1,000-seat hall. The project had a total investment of 10,024 billion VND in 2013.

In January 2016, Satra broke ground on the project and expected it to be completed in 2020. However, for nearly a decade, the "golden land" of more than 8,000 m2 located right on Nguyen Hue walking street is still abandoned.

According to Satra's report, up to now, all investment preparation stages such as architectural design, construction survey, infrastructure connection, environmental impact assessment, demolition of old works and site clearance are ready and only waiting for the Project to be licensed to start construction.

Stuck in regulations on investment outside the industry

Although the investment preparation work has been completed for a long time, up to now, the Project has not been able to be constructed due to regulations related to non-core investment of state-owned enterprises, because currently, Satra is a state-owned enterprise under the People's Committee of Ho Chi Minh City.

Due to the fact that the Project implementation process has been going through many stages, while the legal regulations have changed, in May 2021, the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee issued Official Dispatch No. 1499/UBND-DA to the Prime Minister proposing approval in principle for Satra to lease part of the public land area at the old Tax Trade Center location (area of 7,630 m2) to invest in the Project. At the same time, it proposed approval in principle for Satra to make non-core investments in the Satra Tax Plaza Project.

If approved for investment in the Project, the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee requires Satra to ensure the conditions that it is not allowed to cooperate in investing in the Project with other partners in any form. At the same time, Satra must pay annual land rent in accordance with the provisions of the Land Law. In case Satra equitizes the enterprise, the value of land use rights at the land where the Project is implemented will not be determined in the value of the Company.

After receiving the petition from Ho Chi Minh City, the Prime Minister assigned ministries and branches to give their opinions on this project.

During the review, ministries and branches all expressed disagreement with land allocation without auction, because it is not in accordance with current regulations.

Meanwhile, the proposal of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee to approve Satra's investment in the Project outside its core business is not convincing enough. Therefore, the ministries and branches request Ho Chi Minh City to comply with the provisions of Decree No. 91/2015/ND-CP, Decree No. 32/2018/ND-CP, Decree No. 140/2020/ND-CP; not to consider allowing Satra to invest outside its core business.

Furthermore, Satra is a 100% state-owned enterprise, so it must strictly comply with the public asset handling process before being allocated land.

Project has a chance to revive

By early 2025, a ray of hope appeared for the Satra Tax Plaza Project when the Government issued Decree No. 03/2025/ND-CP replacing Decree No. 167/2017/ND-CP and Decree No. 67/2021/ND-CP.

Specifically, Decree No. 03/2025/ND-CP on the arrangement and handling of public assets, effective from January 1, 2025, stipulates that real estate of enterprises is not subject to the rearrangement and handling of public assets.

By February 2025, the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee assigned the Standing Committee of Steering Committee 167 (Department of Finance) to preside over and coordinate with the Department of Natural Resources and Environment (now the Department of Agriculture and Environment) and relevant units to study the provisions of Decree No. 03/2025 on the plan to rearrange and handle real estate managed and used by Satra. However, to date, the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee has not approved the plan to rearrange and handle public housing and land for the land used to build the Project.

In the latest document sent to the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee in early May 2025, Satra continued to propose that the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee recommend the Government to allow enterprises to invest on public land area (7,630 m2) and approve Satra to lease land without auctioning land use rights according to the provisions of Point p, Clause 3, Article 124, Land Law 2024.

Satra said that the company has invested 487 billion VND in the preparation phase, of which more than 300 billion VND is for compensation and resettlement support. On the other hand, the Corporation still has to pay annual land rent since the demolition of Tax Trade Center (since 2014), totaling more than 640 billion VND by 2024.

According to Satra, not being allocated land and not being approved for the project's continued investment will seriously affect revenue and profit, and make it difficult to recover and settle expenses such as compensation and support costs for households and organizations (VND 199 billion), and additional support costs of 40% of the value of houses and land calculated for compensation for households according to the City People's Committee's policy (VND 102 billion).

Source: https://baodautu.vn/tphcm-du-an-satra-tax-plaza-them-hy-vong-hoi-sinh-sau-gan-mot-thap-ky-bo-hoang-d297512.html