The market for construction materials is also developing in breadth as well as depth. Consumers are becoming stricter in demanding high quality as well as attractive products. There still exist inherent constraints in the Vietnamese construction materials market such as lack of long-term planning, small scale production, unfair competition, unspecified origin of goods and materials reaching the consumers through a succession of middlemen. 

    There are also many limitations to trading construction materials in cities, the typical forms of outlet are as follows:

- Individual households 
    Normally, these shops display and trade construction materials of many different manufacturers with unspecified quality, price and origin. Hence, these shops are unreliable for consumers as imitations are displayed together with true goods, making it difficult for consumers to distinguish the quality product.

- Companies renting showrooms 
    These showrooms bear high rental costs in cities and usually only have small floor areas, making it difficult to display goods effectively and to provide parking space for customers. At the same time, they incur large advertising costs. Even when consumers come to visit the showrooms, they still hesitate in buying goods because they still want to compare prices with other vendors. The business opportunity, therefore, decreases greatly. 

    Therefore, Vietnam needs a trade centre specializing in building materials and interiors which is modern, large scale and operated professionally as in other countries. This trade centre needs to be able to display a complete range of products from many manufacturers to give consumers a wide choice in one convenient location. Products need to be arranged and subdivided clearly. Goods displayed in the trade centre need to be subject to strict quality control and checking to ensure no imitations are offered to consumers. Prices need to be listed, and information about products and the sales policies of manufacturers need to be clearly announced to consumers. 

    In other countries, trade centres specializing in building materials have been operating for some time such as OBI in Germany, Home Depot in USA, Bunnings in Australia; and are developing strongly in developing countries like HomePro in Thailand and B&Q or Easyhome in China. Following the success of these trade centres and the trend of Vietnam’s integration into the global economy, the development of Melinh PLAZA is essential. 

    Having consulted other models of building material trade centres around the world and researched the market and business and consumption customs of Vietnamese people, we decided to build Melinh PLAZA at a strategic location on the Thang Long–Noi Bai Highway at the intersection with National Highway No.18, which connects the Western and Eastern provinces of Northern Vietnam. Thanks to this strategic location, Melinh PLAZA serves not only the Hanoi market but also the major economic regions in Northern Vietnam. We have also invested in building a convenient road system, sufficient parking spaces, modern warehouses, a restaurant area, an office and apartment building for lease. As the shopping frequency for building materials is not as high as for consumer goods, we chose to build Melinh PLAZA on the outskirts of Hanoi in order to attain the largest site area with the lowest rental. 

    Melinh PLAZA will become the most attractive building material and interior design trade centre and will also offer the chance to reduce advertising costs. In addition to Vietnamese enterprises, we are actively encouraging international manufacturers with new products to enter the Vietnamese market. This will create a unique atmosphere and ensure that consumers are attracted to Melinh PLAZA. 

    Melinh PLAZA will start with a soft opening from May until September 2006. During this initial period there will be no rental charge. In preparation for the opening ceremony, we are organizing the Inter-Deco Exhibition from 31st August to 5th September 2006. This will be a large-scale exhibition featuring more than 1,000 booths covering an exhibition display area of 50,000 sqm, and will include a huge number of domestic and international companies. The event is sponsored by the Ministry of Construction, the Ministry of Industry, the Ministry of Trade, and is organized by the Vietnam Chamber of Commerce and Industry (VCCI), VCCI EXPO Joint-Stock Company, T&M Investment (Vietnam) Co., Ltd, Construction Information Technology Centre and the Vietnam Association of Building Materials.