PM urges HCM City to create favourable start-up environment

At a working session with HCM City’s key leaders on June 23, PM Phuc said it is a must for the city to build an innovative economy, become a momentum for sustainable development and drive the country’s intensive international integration.

He emphasised core values the southern hub should look towards, including smart urban infrastructure, smart management, technocracy, inclusive growth and equal development opportunities for all people.

“HCM City’s key objective is to generate jobs with increasing incomes, create sustainable collection sources for State budget and leave no one behind development,” the Government leader stressed. 

PM Phuc voiced his hope that HCM City will put forth long-term planning schemes which target sustainable development, and urged the locality to review its land use plan and report the results to the PM in August. 

The PM requested HCM City to take the lead in terms of administrative reform, strive to enter the list of the five localities with the best provincial competitiveness index, and create new breakthroughs in private investment. 

To that end, HCM City, together with the capital city of Hanoi, should pioneer in start-up and innovation and become an international centre of education and health care, he said. 

The government leader asked the municipal Party Organisation and administration to focus efforts on removing bottlenecks hindering the city’s socio-economic development, especially in transport infrastructure, and renew thoughts. “The Government will accompany the city’s innovations,” he affirmed. 

At the meeting, PM Phuc also praised the city’s contributions to the country’s GDP and state budget collection. 

In the first half of this year, HCM City’s economy grew 7.76% as compared with 7.47% in the same period last year, with the best performers being services, industry, construction, and agriculture. It is a huge task for the city to reach the economic growth rate of 8.5% set for the last six months and the following years, the leader said. 

PM Phuc also pointed out a range of limitations such as decreased competitiveness index and below-average readings of unofficial spending, equal competitiveness, legal institutions and systematic dynamism. At the same time, the city has to face with such problems as flooding, traffic jams and pollution, he said. 

Regarding the expansion of Tan Son Nhat International Airport, PM Phuc urged relevant agencies and units to promptly seek experts and organisations to make scientific assessments so as to soon implement the project, explaining that the Long Thanh international airport project, which aims to reduce the overload of Tan Son Nhat airport, is scheduled to be completed in 2025-2027.

Representatives from ministries and agencies held that HCM City has become an attractive destination for investors and stressed the need for the locality to select suitable projects and prioritise urgent programmes in order to create impulses for its growth. 

They also suggested HCM City  intensify the decentralisation of management at different levels and finalise a legal framework, thus giving a facelift for the locality. 

Speaking at the working session, Secretary of the municipal Party Committee Nguyen Thien Nhan said that HCM City commits to exert all-out efforts to complete socio-economic targets and overfulfill the target of State budget collection. 

HCM City will continue with administrative reform and strive to launch the granting of investment licences under the one-stop model in September, in tandem with settling pressing issues like waste and traffic jams.