Dong Nai to Become an Asia-Pacific Aviation Hub: Property Opportunity from the Long Thanh Airport City
On 21 July 2026, Vietnam’s Politburo issued a Resolution on developing Dong Nai, setting the direction for it to become a modern Asia-Pacific aviation hub. Anchored by Long Thanh International Airport, Dong Nai is targeted to grow into a multi-centre “airport city” — a direction with major implications for the property market across the southern region. This article summarises the key points of the Resolution and analyses what they mean for investors.
Dong Nai → Aviation Hub — In 30 Seconds
What the Resolution Sets Out
The Resolution defines a three-stage roadmap: by 2035, Dong Nai becomes a “riverside, multi-centre, green, smart airport city” meeting international aviation-economy standards; by 2045, a modern Asia-Pacific aviation hub; and with a 2065 vision of a globally connected city among the world’s leading multi-function airport cities.
Economically, it targets average GRDP growth of at least 10% a year in 2026–2030, with the economy scaling sharply across milestones:
| Year | GRDP | GRDP per capita |
|---|---|---|
| 2030 | US$44bn | US$9,200 |
| 2035 | US$70bn | US$13,000 |
| 2045 | US$150bn | US$23,000 |
| 2065 | US$600bn | US$67,500 |
Long Thanh Airport — The Core of the Airport City
At the centre of the plan is Long Thanh International Airport, designated as Vietnam’s primary international air gateway and international transshipment hub. The Long Thanh–Nhon Trach area is planned as an airport city of roughly 2.5 million people. This is the “aerotropolis” model — a city built around an airport — proven in several places worldwide, where the airport drives logistics, trade, services and urban development rather than simply moving passengers.
Four Strategic Development Corridors
The Resolution defines four corridors linking Dong Nai to the region and beyond:
- Ho Chi Minh City – Bien Hoa – Long Thanh – Phuoc An port: an air, seaport and logistics axis.
- Bien Hoa – Dau Giay – Tan Phu – Central Highlands: industry, agriculture and eco-tourism.
- Long Thanh – Lam Dong – South Central Coast – Central Highlands: connecting aviation with seaports and the highlands.
- Phuoc Long – Dong Xoai – Chon Thanh – Hoa Lu – Cambodia – ASEAN: cross-border logistics.
Dong Nai will also study special mechanisms similar to Ho Chi Minh City’s across investment, finance, land, planning, science-technology and talent, plus functional zones such as a free-trade zone, a digital-technology zone, an innovation zone and a higher-education zone. Priority industries include aviation, semiconductors, high-tech, AI, cloud computing and biotechnology.
Realtique’s View: What It Means for Property
For investors, this direction reinforces a clear trend: infrastructure and capital are shifting east. Three effects stand out:
- The Long Thanh – Nhon Trach – Bien Hoa axis benefits directly: an airport city of 2.5 million residents creates enormous long-term demand for housing, services, logistics and commercial property.
- A spillover to Ho Chi Minh City: Long Thanh sits on the axis connecting to the city’s eastern innovation pole (Thu Duc) in the HCMC master plan — two mutually reinforcing directions that support property values in the city’s east.
- A note on patience: a plan is direction, not a delivery guarantee. “Airport-linked” property values tend to re-rate at each real infrastructure milestone (connecting roads, opening dates) rather than on news alone — so favour clear legal title, genuine proximity to nodes, and a long holding horizon.
In short, the Dong Nai Resolution is not just a local story but one piece of a regional mega-city picture — with Long Thanh airport set to become one of the most important growth drivers in southern Vietnam over the next 20–40 years.
Why “Airport Cities” Re-Rate Property
The aerotropolis model has proven its pull worldwide, from Incheon in South Korea to Changi in Singapore and Daxing in China. The mechanism that lifts property values comes from three flows: people (tens of millions of passengers and hundreds of thousands of workers and specialists each year create demand for housing, rentals and services), goods (logistics, warehousing and free-trade zones pull in industrial and commercial real estate), and capital (domestic firms and FDI locate headquarters, plants and R&D centres near the airport).
For Long Thanh, the 2.5-million-person scale of the Long Thanh–Nhon Trach airport city, together with its four connecting corridors, shows this is not a standalone airport but a new economic pole for the south. As connecting infrastructure (expressways, ring roads, rail) is completed, the “time distance” from Long Thanh to central Ho Chi Minh City shrinks — historically the leading indicator ahead of price growth in peripheral areas.
How Foreign Buyers Can Position
For overseas investors, the practical takeaway is to favour the mature, liquid markets first — the eastern core of Ho Chi Minh City (Thu Duc and the riverfront) where apartments carry clear foreign-ownership rights within the 30% building quota — while treating the Long Thanh frontier as a longer-horizon, higher-conviction play. Landed property along the airport corridor is generally accessed by foreigners only through a long-term lease structure rather than outright ownership, so eligibility and title should be checked project by project. As always, prioritise developers with strong delivery records and legal clarity, and size positions to a multi-year horizon rather than a news cycle. For the ownership rules that apply everywhere, see our Foreign Buyer Guide.
Position early on the eastern corridor
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KC Pham
KC and the Realtique team help local and international investors read Vietnam’s planning moves and position early in the right growth corridors.
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