“Fire tests gold, hardship tests strength”

This is the statement of Chairman of Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee Nguyen Van Duoc at the socio-economic conference in May and the key points in June. This conference took place with positive results when the indexes continued to increase in May to "close the book" of the first 5 months of Ho Chi Minh City's economic growth; at the same time, maintaining balance and adaptability to fluctuations, including risks of global geopolitics and economics.

Specifically, total retail sales of goods and consumer service revenue in May is estimated at VND113,364 billion, up 19% over the same period, and in the first 5 months of the year, total retail sales of goods and consumer service revenue is estimated at VND544,447 billion, up 16.8% over the same period.

The export situation tends to grow rapidly with the turnover in the first 5 months reaching 20.4 billion USD, up 16.2% over the same period. The total foreign investment capital in the city in the first 4 months of the year reached 1,480.8 million USD, up 77.7% over the same period... It can be seen that the developments are consistent with the previous assessments and comments in April, with the service sector continuing to increase from the "wave" of the April 30 and May 1 holidays. The industrial - manufacturing sector increased but was unstable because it was in a "waiting for the right time" state. The currency, foreign exchange and gold markets fluctuated due to the influence of the world market, not stable. The two internal weaknesses of the city are public investment disbursement and the investment - business environment that has not yet improved. The expansion of Ho Chi Minh City is a "window of opportunity", but cannot immediately impact the socio -economic situation.

In addition, the sharp increase in foreign direct investment (FDI) reflects the Government and city authorities’ efforts to reform and attract investors; on the other hand, it shows the trend of manufacturing investors leaving China for Vietnam to start a real production cycle, to avoid US tariffs (not just a form of “borrowing the road”). Along with that, FDI investors from other countries focus on trade and service projects, reflecting their assessment of the market and the middle class of Ho Chi Minh City and Vietnam. The consumer price index tends to increase for many reasons, so it is necessary to activate appropriate price stabilization and social security policies in the coming months.

Preparing for the first 6 months of the year means that the city can consider this as a time to accelerate, creating "pivot" changes, "pushes" through products. In particular, early handover to society of specific products in 3 key areas: transport infrastructure, improving the business environment and absorbing investment capital (public investment and social capital). To do so, it is necessary to build and issue a "green channel" mechanism for key public investment, private investment and FDI projects of Ho Chi Minh City, focusing on 5 groups of subjects including large-capital public investment projects, key FDI projects, high technology (including green transformation, digital transformation), social housing and infrastructure - urban railways.

To unify the will and action motto of the entire system, we should have a growth directive to clearly define the tasks, key solutions, and breakthroughs to promote economic growth, ensuring that the growth target of Ho Chi Minh City from 2025 reaches 8.5% or more. At the same time, implementing the direction of General Secretary To Lam "having a policy mechanism to assign orders to the private economic sector to participate in a number of key, important national projects, urgent tasks such as building high-speed railways, urban railways, energy infrastructure, digital infrastructure..." to jointly solve the problems and challenges of Ho Chi Minh City, along with the initiative of a system to monitor the removal of obstacles and improve the investment and business environment.

Building a service growth chain until the end of 2025 by initiating the implementation of the Peace Festival chain of activities from the National Day 2025 to synchronously activate and sustainably maintain the attraction of services - consumption - tourism - culture. From there, expand and connect in the inter-regional nature of the new city, unify not only in culture - tourism but also in many other fields, focusing on the plan to promote science - technology, innovation according to the "3 houses" model with output products being the city's strategic technologies associated with specific programs, projects and implementation mechanisms in the period 2025-2026 onwards.

NGUYEN QUAN CAT

Source: https://www.sggp.org.vn/lua-thu-vang-gian-nan-thu-suc-post798025.html