Chairman of the municipal People’s Committee Nguyen Thanh Phong addresses the HCM City Economic Forum on October 18 (Photo: VNA) HCM City (VNA) – Becoming a financial hub is key to helping Ho Chi Minh City make economic breakthroughs in the time ahead, and the city pledges to exert every effort to facilitate financial institutions’ investment, a local official said on October 18.
Chairman of the municipal People’s Committee Nguyen Thanh Phong made the remark at the HCM City Economic Forum that sought ways to turn the city into a financial hub of Asia and the world.
Deputy Prime Minister Vu Duc Dam stressed HCM City’s important role as a socio-economic locomotive of Vietnam, noting that building the city into a regional and global financial hub is not only its own wish but also a common target of the whole nation.
Phong said the financial market is important to mobilising social resources, a core factor helping boost economic growth in the world’s big cities.
In New York, financial services account for 46 percent of its economy’s added value. The rate is 42 percent in London, 27 percent in Shanghai, and 29 percent in Singapore.
This shows that the financial market-based growth model of big cities and the formation of international financial hubs are an inevitable trend and also a compulsory process to become a global city, the official noted.
He added the financial market has been defined as one of the nine main service sectors of HCM City since 2001. However, it would be an odyssey to become a financial hub as the city has a low starting point.
The chairman affirmed that municipal authorities have pledged to make all-out efforts to ensure a stable socio-political environment and investors’ legitimate interests, and create optimal conditions for financial organisations and institutions’ stable and long-term operation.
The HCM City People’s Committee is scheduled to submit a plan on building the city into a regional and global financial hub to the Government in June 2020.
Phong expressed his hope that the Government will list this as a key national plan, which he said will be a prerequisite for the city to successfully carry out this plan./.
VNA
