CPV chief urges HCM City to achieve stronger growth

He was addressing a meeting between the Politburo and the HCM City Party Committee’s Standing Board on October 19 to review the five-year implementation of the Politburo’s Resolution No. 16-NQ/TW on orientations and tasks for development of the southern metropolis. 

HCM City is a special urban area, a big economic, cultural, educational and training and scientific and technological centre, a destination of international exchanges and integration, and a driver of the southern key economic region. Holding an important political position, the City has made crucial contributions to the country’s nation-building, renewal and integration efforts, he stressed.

HCM City should roll out suitable, feasible, effective development roadmaps by 2020 and beyond, he said.

He gave the green light to the city to pilot issues relating to mechanisms, a specialized policy and management decentralization emerging during its development process, for which the State’s regulations are yet to cover or the existing State regulations are no longer suitable for application. 

However, he said, the pilot implementation must be conducted under the supervision of the Government, especially when it comes to major and sensitive matters. 

The General Secretary noted that HCM City will have stronger power in public financial administration, budget management, planning and investment, and personnel work. 

The Politburo will issue Conclusion on the continuous implementation of Resolution No. 16-NQ/TW after this working session, he said.

At the meeting, the municipal Party Committee’s Standing Board reported that in 2011-2015, HCM City’s gross domestic product (GDP) rose by 9.6 percent annually on average, 1.63 times higher than the country’s average and 1.5 times higher than the target set by the Resolution. 

In 2016, its gross regional domestic product (GRDP) growth rate reached 8.05 percent, 1.3 times higher than the nation’s number, and its GRDP per head stood at US$5,122, 2.37 times higher than the country’s figure. 

The city has also made big strides in urban infrastructure planning, management and development, education-training, scientific and technological research and application, culture, health care, social welfare, external affairs, Party building and administrative reform. 

Expanded external relations and international cooperation have raised the City’s prestige and position at home and abroad.

However, several participants pointed out that the City’s economic growth, foreign direct investment attraction and exports were still below expectations.