By Tran Thi Kieu Thanh Ha & Steve Davies

We are thrilled to announce that Vietnam’s government has just released a comprehensive and innovative new national policy for public markets that lays the foundation for a bright future for the country’s 6,000 markets—and a global model for Market Cities everywhere. This achievement is all the more remarkable because it was only in 2011 that Hanoi’s city government announced that it would replace most of its nearly 350 traditional wet markets with “modern” supermarkets and shopping centers. This list included the city’s famous Chau Long Market, which Project for Public Spaces identified at that time as one of the world’s most endangered markets.

This article describes how this policy change came about and the key elements of the new policy that make it so significant to the future of markets in Vietnam.

Mobilizing to Save the Markets and a Way of Life

After the Hanoi Government announced that markets would be replaced, HealthBridge spearheaded a “Save the Markets” campaign that successfully changed the government’s decision. HealthBridge, a public health NGO, cares deeply about public wet markets because they provide affordable, fresh, and nutritious food to urban residents, especially those living on limited incomes. This campaign, which involved many partners, including those in the media, was a success and partly supported by the fact that one of the first projects to replace a market was a commercial failure. 

While Hanoi ultimately abandoned its misguided approach, the question remained: What should happen with the city's markets? How can these traditional markets be modernized while retaining their authenticity and core reason for being? Leaving them in their current condition, with many markets in need of repair and renovation, is not an option.

For one thing, markets are too critical to the city's future. Research shows that wet markets remain the preferred place to shop for fresh food because of their convenience and low prices, despite the influx of supermarkets and online shopping. Thousands of people—urban and rural—depend on these markets for their livelihood, and these personal relationships between vendors and customers bring people back, often every day.

Even though conversion to shopping centers is no longer an active threat, wet markets are still challenged by a perfect storm of other issues: modernization in a country that has one of the fastest growing economies in the world with one of the youngest populations–with a lack of understanding of the value that markets bring to the city and why they are worthy of investment; rampant new development, with design that is not context-sensitive; poor maintenance and food safety standards; and the fact that people now have choices with an ever-increasing number of supermarkets, hypermarkets, and online shopping.

At the same time, hundreds of informal street markets—where thousands make their livelihoods and millions of customers shop—were also endangered. These “naturally occurring” markets lacked legal status, so vendors operated without licenses or permits. Many of these street markets surrounded wet market buildings that had no jurisdiction over outside vendors. A large number of street markets could be best described as farmers markets, with clusters of local producers selling directly to urban residents. 

The map below illustrates just how many informal markets there are in Hanoi. HealthBridge prepared this map of four districts in the city's inner core: there are 25 formal wet markets in these four districts compared with 110 informal markets.

One street market in the central district is next to a former wet market building that was demolished and replaced by an unsuccessful shopping center before the city changed its policy. The developer relocated the wet market to the basement, where only a few vendors remain today because it was such an inaccessible location. To survive, vendors relocated their businesses to the street.    

Developing a New Vision for Wet Markets 

In 2018, HealthBridge invited Place Solutions Group to come to Hanoi to help local architects develop design concepts to revitalize the wet markets in the city. The collaboration over three fruitful weeks involved studying local needs and generating design concepts to meet the expectations of market operators and stakeholders –and to make markets better public spaces. Other key partners included the Hanoi Architects Association and a new design center, AGOhub, which gathered over 20 young architects to volunteer to participate in our process. We based our project in part on policy work already completed by the city’s think tank, Hanoi Institute for Social and Economic Development (HISED), which had prepared a lengthy report outlining recommendations for future action.

Our goal with this effort was to develop new design approaches to revitalize three "wet" markets in the city—Chau Long Market, Ha Market, and Ngoc Lam Market—as models for others. All had stakeholders who were interested in renovating the markets in the near term, with varying levels of capital support available. We published the results as A New Vision for Wet Markets in Hanoi.  

While the plan was to implement ideas for the pilot markets as quickly as possible, we encountered significant underlying policy obstacles that limited funding for implementation and prevented many of the ideas from being implemented at all. So, using these projects as laboratories, HealthBridge began advocating for new policies.  

To provide policymakers with up-to-date information, Place Solutions Group and HealthBridge researched public market policies of global institutions and national, provincial, and local governments from other countries that related to specific needs and goals of Vietnamese markets.  We presented our findings in a report, Investing in the Renewal of Vietnam's Wet Markets: National Policy Opportunities Report, which also identified opportunities to leverage the economic, social, and health benefits that markets bring to urban and rural areas. 

HealthBridge also organized policy consultation workshops with city and provincial governments to comment on a draft policy, sent comments to the government, and worked with the media to highlight challenging issues relating to market management.

Highlights of the New National Policy for Development and Management of Markets

Among a host of other features, the new national policy:

Presents a clear definition of public markets. The policy clearly describes what a market is, including three classes of markets (based on the number of vendors) and specific types of markets that did not exist in policy before, including night markets, community markets, and temporary markets.  These typologies will help cities make market management more consistent, ultimately improving the experience for both the vendors and the customers. Importantly, outdoor markets are recognized for the first time as a legitimate form of market and are subject to government regulations such as cleanliness and hygiene, and “naturally-occurring” markets around wet market buildings are now under the same management as the market’s indoor vendors.  

Enables cities to use government funds to improve and invest in urban markets. Publicly operated markets can now be renovated using public funds. Before, only rural markets were eligible for funding.

‍Provides incentives for private investment projects to build or improve markets. The State will offer market investment projects various incentives such as favorable investment rules, credit programs, and other policies that encourage non-state investment.

Enables informal vendors to be formally organized into markets, including farmers markets. Informal vendors (including farmers and mobile vendors) can have a designated space/area in markets to sell their produce. Farmers markets can be classified as a type of community market, defined as places for trading and exchanging goods produced and grown by people, as well as trading common and essential goods approved by the relevant authorities to serve local communities.

Requires that each province and centrally-governed city create a Market Development Plan. Centrally-governed cities include large cities like Hanoi, Da Nang, and Ho Chi Minh City; smaller cities and towns will be included in provincial-wide plans. Market Development Plans will identify strategies “to construct, renovate, and upgrade markets and attract investment in the development of market systems in their areas.” Before, markets were barely mentioned in urban development plans as if they did not exist. This provision lays the foundation for a local government to develop a comprehensive investment plan. 

Next Steps: Creating City-Wide Market Strategies and Networks

The policy took effect on August 1, 2024. The government is expected to provide further written guidance to cities and provinces regarding its implementation. However, we know that local governments will need more than that to fully take advantage of this new policy and its implications for thousands of local markets. HealthBridge plans to provide technical support to several cities to develop city-wide market networks as part of their Market Development Plans and will use lessons learned to provide guidance and organize training for other cities and provinces.

We look forward to seeing Vietnam becoming a laboratory for innovative Market Cities strategies and policies in the years ahead!

About the Authors

Tran Thi Kieu Thanh Ha is the Livable Cities Project Manager of HealthBridge Canada-Hanoi. Steve Davies is the Co-Founder of Project for Public Spaces and Principal of Place Solutions Group.

Portions of this article were previously published in The City at Eye Level Asia (STIPO, 2020).