HCM City (VNA) – Ho Chi Minh City needs to carry out specific plans to maintain its economic growth in the last four months of 2016, Chairman of the municipal People’s Committee Nguyen Thanh Phong said at a working session with local officials on August 1.
The city will focus on implementing the Government’s Resolution No.19 on improving business environment and increasing national competitiveness in 2016-2017 and with orientation towards 2020, and Resolution No.35 on supporting and developing businesses until 2020.
Particularly, the city moves to simplify administrative procedures and enhance the application of information technology in the field to make it easier for enterprises to do business.
Apart from increasing market management and preventing effectively trade frauds, the city will actively promote the campaign “Vietnamese people prioritise Vietnamese goods” and pay more attention to the retail market which is dominated by foreign partners.
In the long run, HCM City will concentrate to improving the municipal trade development scheme and upgrading the information system for farm produce in 2016-2020, while establishing a chemicals and aromatic spices business centre.
The city plans to speed up the implementation of urgent infrastructure projects in 2016, including the development of water supply network.
According to Director of the municipal Department of Planning and Investment Su Ngoc Anh, the total retail sales and services revenue reached nearly 407 trillion VND (18.31 billion USD) in the January-July, a year-on-year increase of 11.4 percent.
The export turnover was estimated at 17.6 billion USD in the period, a yearly rise of 1.8 percent. Meanwhile, the import turnover hit 20.7 billion USD, up 9.8 percent.
The industrial production index rose by 3.1 percent.
The city attracted 19 public-private partnership (PPP) projects with a total investment of over 34.8 trillion VND (1.56 billion USD) in the first seven months of 2016.-VNA