Forum seeks ways to revitalise economic growth in HCM City

The forum represents an annual international event chaired by the municipal People’s Committee which collects ideas and recommendations of both domestic and foreign experts and speakers regarding the southern city’s socio-economic development fields, as well as its key projects, targets, and programmes.

The function features the participation of over 900 delegates, including leaders of the Government, ministries, sectors, and representatives from foreign diplomatic agencies and localities, as well as international organisations such as the World Bank (WB), International Monetary Fund (ÌM), International Finance Corporation (IFC), and Asian Development Bank (ADB), alongside economic experts.

It provides a venue for experts, state management agencies, and businesses to meet and exchange views on models, solutions, and resources to implement the city's digital transformation plan both synchronously and effectively.

As part of his opening speech, Phan Van Mai, chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee, highlighted the forum as an important event for the long-term development of the city amid Industry 4.0 having an increasingly strong impact on multiple fields of economic and social life, not just on a single country, but globally. This will serve to open up plenty of opportunities and also pose an array of challenges for the country, as well Ho Chi Minh City, in the time ahead.

The municipal leader emphasized that digital technology has become an important tool in combating the pandemic and maintaining supply chains, production, and business activities, with this proving the effectiveness of digital transformation after the COVID-19 pandemic halted and disrupted the majority of the city's socio- economic development in late 2021, leading to an economic decline of 7.4%.

Regarding the southern metropolis’ programme on economic recovery and development for the 2022 to 2025 period, Mai said the city has outlined its goals and decisions aimed at accelerating the process of growth recovery in association with restructuring the economy. This aims towards promoting competition, increasing the proportion of goods and services with high value-added content and ensuring sustainable development goals moving forward.

Furthermore, the forum focuses on four major topics, including the overall picture on digital transformation in the southern city’s enterprises, suitable policies for the city’s digital economic development, challenges and solutions in boosting digital transformation to improve businesses’ competitiveness, and experience and lessons in this field of both domestic and international firms.

According to Vo Van Hoan, vice chairman of the municipal People’s Committee, who is also head of the organising board, the COVID-19 pandemic shows that digitisation in business operations and people's lives has becomes increasingly necessary.

Changes over recent years prove that business organisational models that save manpower, space, time, and travel distance are becoming increasingly dominant, thereby changing the mindset of the whole society, the vice chairman stated.

Through this year's forum, the southern city hopes to find a standard transformation model for the digital transformation process of state agencies, businesses, and even new investment resources, thereby making it possible to put the city on the right track for digital economic development. This can be considered the driving force behind the southern hub’s economic growth in the near future, Hoan went on to say.

“This is a great ambition of the City in terms of digital economy, digital transformation and digital governance. Through the forum, the city and the business community will develop supporting policies and mechanisms for digital transformation.

In addition, it is set to set up a digital support consulting organization and enhance the role of stakeholders in the digital ecosystem and digital economy as a way of promoting the building of Ho Chi Minh City into a smart city in the time to come," Hoan added.

Last year witnessed the digital economy contribute 14.4% of the city’s GRDP. Indeed, HCM City is poised to raise the figure to 25% by 2025 and 40% by 2030.