HCMC TARGETS ECONOMIC GROWTH OF 8.3-8.5% IN 2018

At the ninth meeting of the municipal People’s Council today, July 10, the city government expressed hope that private investment in the city would account for 35% of the GRDP and the city budget revenue target would be fully realized. The city also planned to develop a new hi-tech industrial park and establish an additional 46,000 enterprises this year.

In a statement from the HCMC government on socioeconomic missions for the second half of the year, delivered at the meeting, HCMC Vice Chairman Tran Vinh Tuyen noted that the city had achieved a GRDP growth rate of 7.86% in the first half of this year. The city budget revenue had reached nearly 48.7% of the estimate, of which the revenue collected from domestic production and business activities went up by 11.7% year-on-year.

The city also reported positive results in domestic and foreign direct investment (FDI) in the first half of the year. The number of FDI projects surged compared with the same period last year, while the investment environment has improved.

Tuyen outlined the objectives for the remaining months of the year, including raising the quality of water-borne tourism products, promoting street art, preparing appropriate solutions to ensure sufficient capital for the city’s economic development, and drafting projects to develop an innovative urban area in the east of the city, as well as a media center and multimedia infrastructure.

The city will also continue to promote industrial development, mainly focusing on key industrial sectors that have advanced technology and high added value, have high competitiveness and can join global value chains. In addition, the city will develop supporting industries, reduce the import of accessories and equipment for production to improve the localization rate and execute a plan to develop HCMC’s real estate market in 2016-2020, with a vision to 2030.

At the meeting, Nguyen Thi Quyet Tam, chairwoman of the HCMC People’s Council, stressed that despite economic achievements, the city faced shortcomings, such as untapped potential, unsustainable development, the decreasing competitiveness of some sectors, asynchronous administrative reforms, cumbersome State apparatus and the slow progress of seven breakthrough programs.

Farmland to be reduced by 26,000 hectares

Secretary of the HCMC Party Committee Nguyen Thien Nhan told the meeting that the Government had allowed HCMC to convert 26,000 hectares of agricultural land into land for industry and services for socioeconomic development.

The conversion of farmland will create a big source of revenue for the city. Besides this, the city government will review the use of land for 1,400 projects to ensure the effective use of farm land in the city. These moves are necessary since the city has faced difficulties with capital mobilization to execute seven breakthrough programs, planned until 2020.

For example, the program to fight floods in the city needs VND73 trillion (US$3.2 billion), but the city has so far raised only 63% of the amount. To raise the rest, the city has called on private investors to get involved in the program to ensure its completion by 2020.

Other programs to reduce environmental pollution and traffic congestion as well as to revitalize the urban landscape have faced the same fate. Only 20% of the latter program, which aims to relocate a large number of makeshift homes along the city’s canals, has been achieved.

Nhan emphasized that the city should take full advantage of its strong workforce of five million laborers; apply technology in all sectors; connect scientists, enterprises and State management agencies and spur investment promotion.

HCMC currently has some 4,420 hectares of land earmarked for industrial parks, with plans to increase this area to more than 5,900 hectares. Meanwhile, the city will take back land lots allocated to projects whose progress is behind schedule.

Over the last five years, the HCMC government has taken back some 5,900 hectares of land allocated to 576 projects.

Land in HCMC makes up 0.6% of the country’s total, while its population accounts for 10% of the country’s total population. The city contributes up to 22% to the country’s gross domestic product.

Source: The Saigon Times