The HCM City economy has recovered completely and is back at the point where it was before the economic crisis, city legislators told the opening session of the People's Council on Dec. 7.
Pham Phuong Thao, the Council chairwoman, said the city has performed its socio-economic tasks capably this year but admitted they fall short of its potential and requirements.
She listed some major problems like environmental pollution, bad health care services, and traffic.
The city reached 17 of 22 socio-economic targets it had set for itself, only failing to achieve targets related to inflation, wastewater-treatment, water supply, export, and the number of firms penalised from pollution.
Lawmakers agreed on an economic growth target of 12 percent for next year which will take average income to above 3,000 USD.
Deputy chairman of the People's Committee, Nguyen Thanh Tai, said the city's economic output this year is estimated at 420 trillion VND (21 billion USD), a growth of 11.5 percent.
Industry saw rapid recovery, growing at 14 percent. The city licensed 29,654 new firms with a cumulative registered capital of 192 trillion VND and 414 FDI projects involving investments of 2.5 billion USD.
A further 122 FDI projects increased their investment.
Work is going on 24 infrastructure projects at a total cost of 59 trillion VND (2.9 billion USD), including 46 trillion VND from ODA funding.
However, prices have been rising and are set to continue rising in December due to the floods in the central region and epidemics,taking inflation for the full year to 9 percent. However, it will decrease to below 8 percent next year, he said.
On several social issues there has been progress this year: The percentage of children under five suffering from malnutrition has been reduced to below 7 percent and the number of hospital beds per 10,000 people has been increased to 42 against a target of 40.
At the penultimate sitting of the People's Council's seventh session, several vital issues like the clogged roads, motorbike racing on the streets, potholes in roads, floods, and child abuse are on the agenda.
The issues will be raised at a question session tomorrow following discussions on Dec. 7 and Dec. 8.
The session wraps up on Friday./.
