It will provide a forum for State officials, experts and business executives toexchange ideas on the prospects of free trade agreements, renovation ofinstitutions to create favourable trading conditions in Vietnam and ways toimprove the business environment in HCM City and Vietnam.
The forum is expected to provide information to city enterprises, increasetheir market access capability and promote the process of creating favourabletrading conditions for them.
It is expected to attract 300 delegates, including city leaders, officials fromministries and departments, international organisations, business groups,universities, research institutions, and the media from HCM City andneighbouring provinces.
Its organisers, the HCM City Institute for Development Studies, HCM CityInternational Integration Support Centre and the Central Institute for EconomicManagement, plan to make it an annual event.
International economic integration and implementation of free trade deals havereduced export tariffs for Vietnam but the competitiveness of the country, itsenterprises or products do not depend only on taxes but also administrativereform and reduction of import-export costs.
According to the World Economic Forum, the benefits of improved global tradefacilitation far exceed those available from further tariff reduction.Estimates suggest that an ambitious improvement in two key components of supplychain barriers, border administration and transport and communicationsinfrastructure, with all countries raising their performance halfway to globalbest practice, would lead to an increase of approximately 2.6 trillion USD (4.7percent) in global GDP and 1.6 trillion USD (14.5 percent) in global exports.
Though the Government has for years made great efforts to createand sustain a favourable environment for trade, conditions still do notmeet international integration needs.
HCM City, as the nation’s economic hub, realises that improving the businessenvironment and competitiveness to foster international integration is one ofthe most important tasks in promoting exports and joining the global supplychain.-VNS/VNA