Viet Nam will need to spend $1.6 billion over the next five years to develop housing for the rapidly increasing number of students in the country, according to a government agency.

The Construction Ministry’s Housing and Real Estate Market Management Department said the country would have 4.3 million students in 2015 and 70 percent of them would need accommodation in dormitories.

Around 4.8 million square meters of housing needs to be built to meet that high demand, the department said.
The Construction Ministry has requested the government to allocate funds every year from government bond proceeds to the construction of student housing.

Viet Nam now has nearly 3 million students at 1,020 universities, colleges and vocational schools. The country can only meet 15 to22 percent of their housing demand, official statistics show.