Five new towers for central Melbourne

Five new multi-storey towers, up to nearly 200 metres tall, are set to added to the Melbourne skyline.

The towers, approved on Tuesday, will generate more than $550 million in private investment and 4000 jobs, and drive a construction boom in central Melbourne, the state government says.

The tallest of the towers will be built in A'Beckett Street and reach to 196m and 63 storeys.

It will contain 632 apartments and is worth $164 million.

The approval of the five towers is the largest number of residential permits approved on one day, Planning Minister Matthew Guy said.

"With the release of these five towers in Melbourne, new home buyers and others can once again have confidence that the state government is aggressively tackling the housing affordability issue in outer as well as inner-city markets," he said.

Mr Guy said Melburnians had made it clear they did not want high rises in the suburbs and to achieve this towers would be built in the CBD and Docklands area.