Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee has just issued a document directing the management of construction materials and the implementation of natural sand replacement solutions.
The Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee assigned the Department of Agriculture and Environment to survey, explore, plan and propose locations of sea sand mines that can be exploited as alternative materials for natural sand. This is a strategic reserve of Ho Chi Minh City, which can be activated immediately when the supply of materials from other areas is in shortage.
This Department is also assigned to coordinate in determining the location of installation of sea sand washing equipment in suitable areas, ensuring environmental and freshwater requirements.
In addition, the Department of Agriculture and Environment is assigned to study mechanisms to assign strategic investors or capable enterprises to implement sea sand washing projects to supply materials for public investment projects. The city is also considering assigning mineral mines to investors or strategic investors to exploit directly for key projects.
In addition to sea sand, Ho Chi Minh City is also promoting solutions to use crushed sand from crushed stone to reduce dependence on natural sand sources that are increasingly scarce.
The Department of Agriculture and Environment is requested to review and guide mineral mining enterprises to carry out procedures to increase capacity, expand or license new construction stone mines to increase crushed sand production.
Meanwhile, the Department of Construction is assigned to closely monitor the developments of the construction material market, update monthly materials prices and announce construction price indexes suitable to the market. At the same time, this department will guide the application of technical standards for the use of alternative materials in construction projects in the area.
The Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee also requests investors and contractors to proactively seek more legal sand sources from provinces or import to ensure construction progress. When preparing the project, units must survey and specifically assess the cost, quality and supply capacity of materials such as crushed sand and sea sand to choose appropriate solutions, limiting the use of traditional materials that are lacking.
For coastal projects, the city prioritizes promoting the use of sea sand if it meets technical and environmental conditions.
In addition, the Ho Chi Minh City Industrial Mineral Association is assigned to mobilize businesses to increase mining capacity to optimize the supply of materials for urgent projects. The Ho Chi Minh City Construction and Building Materials Association is also requested to urgently complete the construction waste recycling project in May 2026 to submit to the City People's Committee for consideration.
According to the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Agriculture and Environment, the demand for construction sand and filling sand for 64 projects in the area is in great shortage.
The demand for construction sand is about 15.56 million m3, but the total exploitation capacity currently only reaches 0.69 million m3, a shortage of 14.87 million m3.
For filling sand, the demand is about 52.89 million m3, but the supply capacity is only 26.93 million m3, a shortage of about 25.96 million m3.
