On March 14, the People’s Committee of Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) organized a meeting between the city’s leaders and representative foreign businesses in 2024.
In his welcoming speech, Vice Chairman of the HCMC People’s Committee Vo Van Hoan emphasized that the city’s leadership wants to listen to and acknowledge the opinions of foreign direct investment (FDI) businesses, thereby opening up opportunities to promote cooperation between the city and the business community, for the development of HCMC and for the development of businesses.
In 2023, HCMC continued to lead the country with nearly 6 billion USD in registered FDI capital, an increase of nearly 50% compared to 2022, accounting for 16% of the country’s FDI capital. This is a bright spot for the investment environment in the city and affirms the implementation of HCMC’s commitments to investors and businesses.
Mr. Hoan affirmed that the contributions of FDI businesses in the city play an important role in the city’s overall social investment. HCMC understands that development is not only based on its own resources, but also relies on the resources of private enterprises and FDI businesses. These are important resources for the city’s development, learning management experience, technology transfer, and facilitating the restructuring of HCMC’s economy.
However, alongside the advantages, HCMC is facing difficulties and challenges such as issues related to infrastructure connectivity, logistics, labor productivity, and the attraction and transfer of technology from FDI. Yet, HCMC has recently received an important resolution from the National Assembly, creating conditions for the city to break through and move forward. Through this resolution, HCMC hopes that the difficulties and obstacles faced by foreign businesses when investing in the city will be resolved soon.
In addition, HCMC is also establishing a Task Force to resolve difficulties for FDI businesses, with the Investment and Trade Promotion Center (ITPC) as the permanent agency, with the desire to contribute to advising the city in supporting and solving the many difficulties and obstacles faced by businesses.
Representatives of businesses put forth suggestions at the meeting. Photo: VGP
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At the meeting, Mr. Ramachandran A.S, Chairman of the American Chamber of Commerce (Amcham) in Vietnam, highly appreciated the partnership that Amcham has developed with the Vietnamese Government, especially with the leadership of HCMC, to promote growth and development of the city’s socio-economic and development prospects in 2024.
According to him, there are 4 areas that HCMC needs to focus on in 2024: Strengthening the high-value-added production ecosystem, including areas such as higher education, innovation and digital transformation between sectors, logistics, infrastructure, energy, and sustainable development; Infrastructure investment; Healthcare, health care, and physical care; Improving favorable policy environment.
Meanwhile, Mr. Dominik Meichle, Vice Chairman of the European Business Association in Vietnam, praised the dynamic economy and efforts of the HCMC government in creating favorable conditions for the business environment, for domestic and international enterprises.
Chairman of the HCMC People’s Committee, Phan Van Mai, attends the meeting. Photo: VGP |
In conclusion, Chairman of the HCMC People’s Committee, Phan Van Mai, highly appreciated the companion and contributions of the business community, including FDI businesses. “HCMC recognizes that our meetings and exchanges are an important way for us to continue to accompany each other in the future,” said Mr. Mai.
According to Chairman Phan Van Mai, the meeting is not only for listening and finding solutions to current difficulties, but through dialogue, the city and businesses will cooperate to create new business opportunities for enterprises, for both HCMC and Vietnam as a whole.
Regarding information for FDI businesses, Mr. Mai stated that in 2024, the city will focus intensely to achieve the target of 7.5-8% growth, which has been set, with emphasis on 3 growth drivers: investment, consumption, and exports.
In terms of investment, the city will focus on ensuring the disbursement of public investment.
For FDI investment, HCMC has both resolved difficulties and obstacles through dialogues and established a FDI Task Force. Furthermore, the city also organizes investment promotion for FDI businesses, exchanges information to guide investment in line with the city’s planning. The city also strives to improve the investment and business environment, especially for FDI businesses.
Regarding consumption, the city has implemented programs and activities to stimulate consumption. Measures have been taken to promote the development of trade and services, with a focus on recovery and development of tourism.
As for exports, Mr. Mai stated that HCMC’s exports have shown positive signals since the end of 2023, and by 2024, some markets have shown improvement. The city has focused on supporting export enterprises to meet international standards of the US, Europe, in order to penetrate these markets, in addition to seeking new markets.
At the meeting, Chairman Phan Van Mai also provided information to FDI investors about the city’s new growth drivers such as digital economy, green transformation; administrative procedure reforms, improving the efficiency of serving people and businesses.
Regarding the suggestions of the businesses, Mr. Mai stated that the ITPC will compile and directly discuss with businesses, outlining specific plans to resolve issues as quickly as possible.
