Ho Chi Minh City, a megacity, places its hopes on the Law on Special Urban Areas.

(NLĐO) - With existing special mechanisms and expectations, the Law on Special Urban Areas for Ho Chi Minh City is hoped to contribute to the development of Ho Chi Minh City, making it worthy of being the city named after President Ho Chi Minh.

At the National People's Council Conference on the direction and tasks for the 2026-2031 term, held in Hanoi on the morning of May 28th, the Standing Committee of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Council submitted a paper with the theme: "Experiences and solutions to enhance the role and authority of the People's Council and its representatives in supervising and deciding on important local issues to build a breakthrough mechanism for socio-economic development."

Mr. Vo Van Minh, Member of the Central Committee of the Party, Deputy Secretary of the City Party Committee, Chairman of the People's Council of Ho Chi Minh City (far left), and delegates attending the Conference. Photo: Lam Hien

The presentation stated that Ho Chi Minh City has entered its new term with the stable operation of a two-tiered local government model after the merger, managing nearly 14 million people in 168 communes, wards, and special zones. The streamlined apparatus operates stably, ensuring smooth and uninterrupted provision of public services to citizens and businesses. The reorganization of the apparatus towards a more efficient structure and reduction of intermediate levels has enhanced the effectiveness of leadership and management; increased the proactive role of the grassroots level, contributing to a significant improvement in service quality and the investment environment. During this transitional period, the City People's Council has clearly affirmed its capacity, integrity, and central role as an elected body through outstanding achievements.

Following the merger, the City People's Council actively implemented Resolution No. 57-NQ/TW of the Politburo on breakthroughs in the development of science, technology, innovation, and national digital transformation, choosing approaches suitable to the specific characteristics of an elected body. The focus was on building and operating the City People's Council's electronic portal, updating, digitizing, and integrating all data from the People's Councils of the three former localities; and simultaneously linking and connecting with the People's Councils of 168 communes, wards, and special zones to facilitate information retrieval, data exploitation, online meetings, session voting, and unified management of the People's Council's activities within the two-tiered local government model. This is a significant step in modernizing the operations of elected bodies, contributing to increased transparency, accountability, and governance efficiency.

Delegates attending the conference. Photo: Lam Hien

Creating and concretizing a system of specific policy mechanisms.

Along with that, the city has actively collaborated with the People's Committee in the process of developing, submitting to the National Assembly , and implementing Resolution No. 260/2025/QH15 amending and supplementing Resolution No. 98/2023/QH15 on piloting some specific mechanisms and policies for the development of Ho Chi Minh City; and at the same time, closely coordinating with the People's Committee in reviewing, handling, and resolving difficulties and shortcomings arising in communes, wards, and special zones when implementing the two-tier government model.

The City People's Council has also promptly reviewed and systematized the entire system of local legal documents; timely amending, supplementing, repealing, or issuing new resolutions as needed, to avoid creating legal vacuums and disrupting state management, production, business, and people's lives. These are very important contributions, clearly demonstrating the capacity, character, and central role of the elected body during the historic transitional period of the City.

Currently, Ho Chi Minh City is entering a phase of development following a multi-centered megacity model, with the challenging goal of achieving double-digit economic growth. Therefore, in recent times, the City People's Council has issued many important resolutions to enable the city to make strong strides in development and meet the practical situation.

Furthermore, the City People's Council is actively and proactively working with the City People's Committee to draft the Law on Special Urban Areas and organize the preparation of the Ho Chi Minh City Master Plan, integrating city planning, general planning, and sectoral planning, in order to create a unified legal foundation for long-term development. This is a strategically significant preparatory step to form a sufficiently strong legal framework for the megacity governance model, ensuring the city is more proactive in organizing development space, mobilizing and allocating resources, implementing new development models, and enhancing international competitiveness.

Specifically, this implements the 9 strategic resolutions of the Politburo and the breakthrough resolutions of the National Assembly.

In the first four months of 2026, despite the continued complex and unpredictable global situation, which had a rapid and strong impact on Vietnam and Ho Chi Minh City, the city proactively implemented key tasks in a coordinated manner, achieving positive results in many economic indicators: Gross Regional Domestic Product (GRDP) in the first quarter of 2026 increased by 8.27% (the highest increase in 10 years); budget revenue in the first four months reached over 328,000 billion VND - approximately 30.8% of the central government's assigned target, an increase of 18.8% compared to the same period; tourism continued to be a bright spot with total tourism revenue reaching 172,000 billion VND, equivalent to 52.1% of the plan, with more than 23.981 million domestic and international visitors to the city. Business development showed positive signs with 19,818 newly established businesses, an increase of 35.31% compared to the same period; Attracting FDI projects worth nearly $3.3 billion, an increase of 127.1%; total import and export turnover is estimated at $17.71 billion, an increase of 8.4% compared to the same period…

Ho Chi Minh City also officially launched the Vietnam International Finance Center; commenced construction of Metro Line 2 and broke ground on the Ben Thanh - Can Gio Metro project…

In the coming period, the Ho Chi Minh City People's Council has identified a challenging goal for the city: achieving double-digit economic growth. The key solution is to concretize the nine strategic resolutions of the Politburo and the breakthrough resolutions of the National Assembly to serve the model of a multi-centered megacity. The city also expressed its determination to rigorously monitor and decisively address stalled projects and major social welfare programs such as urban beautification along rivers and canals, flood control projects, and key transportation projects.

In this new phase of development, with specific mechanisms under Resolution No. 98/2023/QH15, Resolution No. 260/2025/QH15, and expectations regarding the Law on Special Urban Areas for Ho Chi Minh City, the role of the City People's Council will become even more important, ensuring that decisions are issued promptly and in accordance with regulations, contributing to the development of Ho Chi Minh City worthy of being named after President Ho Chi Minh.

Source: https://nld.com.vn/sieu-do-thi-tphcm-ky-vong-vao-luat-do-thi-dac-biet-196260528142117679.htm