Ho Chi Minh City resolved to limit economic downturn

During the course of a meeting aimed at reviewing the socio-economic situation in February and devising solutions for March hosted by the municipal People's Committee on March 3, experts said that the decline in the southern metropolis’ economy may be prolonged. However, it may also mark the start of bright spots and positive signals in terms of maintaining growth.

In his remarks, economic expert Dr. Tran Du Lich said the world economy is now brighter than forecasts from the end of last year as major economies have not fallen into recession, although are still in a state of stagnation.

According to him, currently the biggest issues for the Vietnamese economy relate to the recovery of the real estate market, the financial market, and high bank interest rates.

These represent huge challenges for the country's economic growth target of 6.5% in 2023.

Amid this context, Dr. Lich said that in the immediate future the prosperity for the southern city’s economy will not be seen, with a need to make greater efforts to achieve economic development results as expected by the end of the year.

Sharing this view, Dr. Truong Minh Huy Vu, deputy director of the Ho Chi Minh City Development Research Institute, said that the first quarter of the year will continue to endure a decline compared to 2022 and it is forecast that this decline may continue until the beginning of the second quarter.

According to Dr. Vu, to prevent the decline and maintain growth, the City needs to focus on disbursing public investment, promoting infrastructure projects, digital transformation, administration reform, and dialogue to remove difficulties faced by businesses.

Concluding the conference, Phan Van Mai, chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee, assessed that the southern city must devise a series of solutions aimed at removing difficulties, while public investment has also enjoyed positive changes.

Furthermore, there remains some issues that need to be recognised during the month, such as falling industrial production and the number of enterprises withdrawing from the market being three times higher than the number of newly-established ones.

In March, Phan Van Mai suggested that local industries and business communities work to immediately grasp positive signals from the world economy in order to end the decline as soon as possible.

Specifically, the city needs to focus on solving the problems that businesses previously raised for discussion at the meeting.

“Currently, there are positive signals for the domestic business community, when the Government and the city are working on removing difficulties, if they seize the opportunity, the decline will come to an end soon, thereby creating momentum for early acceleration. The city and businesses need to grasp opportunities as soon as possible, and reached a consensus to create positive effects", Mai added.