Mobilization of resources for HCMC’s socioeconomic development needed

The maximum mobilization of resources for Ho Chi Minh City’s socio-economic development is very necessary, said Director of Ho Chi Minh City Department of Planning and Investment Le Thi Huynh Mai.
Mr. Nguyen Van Nen, HCMC Party Committee Secretary speaks at the conference (Photo: SGGP)

Mr. Nguyen Van Nen, HCMC Party Committee Secretary speaks at the conference (Photo: SGGP)

Ms. Mai made the statement at yesterday’s conference to deploy the tasks of socio-economic development in 2023 organized by the People's Committee of Ho Chi Minh City with the presence of Mr. Nguyen Van Nen, City Party Committee Secretary.

Another challenge of Ho Chi Minh City is mobilizing medium-term public investment capital, Ms. Mai said. According to the assigned plan, Ho Chi Minh City needs to mobilize nearly VND 143,000 billion for the period 2021- 2025. With this level of capital, Ho Chi Minh City can only meet and balance about 21 percent of the total investment needs in this period and does not have enough funds to allocate to transition projects from the previous period. Therefore, the maximum mobilization of resources for investment in the socio-economic development of Ho Chi Minh City is very necessary.

Ms. Le Thi Huynh Mai said that Ho Chi Minh City needs to evaluate its ability to balance the budget to issue local government bonds, creating more capital for the city. In addition, it is necessary to quickly plan and exploit underground space, especially in the central area and areas connected to urban railway lines.

Addressing the conference, Secretary of the Ho Chi Minh City Party Committee Nguyen Van Nen requested to forecast the challenges and pressures affecting Ho Chi Minh City so that the city can have appropriate scenarios and response plans in the next year. In particular, Ho Chi Minh City paid attention to problems of the financial markets, securities, corporate bonds, real estate, energy, reduced orders, and narrowing import-export market.

Secretary Nen directed to remove all existing bottlenecks, including the disbursement of public investment capital, the progress of key projects and works, and many other social issues.

The Secretary of the Ho Chi Minh City Party Committee requested to focus on improving the indicators and competitiveness and improving the investment environment by actions, attitudes and responsibilities of civil servants in each agency. At the same time, local administrations should focus on listening to businesses’ complaints to help remove difficulties and obstacles for enterprises. Along with that, the city should have policies to attract outstanding scientists.

Regarding culture and society, the Secretary noted that development must be synchronized with the economy and go hand in hand with the strategy of accelerating economic development. First of all, Ho Chi Minh City urgently solves problems related to people's lives such as social housing. In particular, Ho Chi Minh City must pay attention to workers who lost jobs and vulnerable people in society.

Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee Phan Van Mai talks with meeting participants (Photo: SGGP)

Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee Phan Van Mai talks with meeting participants (Photo: SGGP)

At the conference, many departmental and local leaders discussed their units' solutions for 2023. Director of the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Finance Le Duy Minh acknowledged that the budget revenue task in 2023 with more than VND469 trillion is a big challenge in the context that Ho Chi Minh City has to face unpredictable developments and increased financial, and monetary risk and inflation.

Disbursement of public investment capital is a problem that the southern largest city is facing. Director of Ho Chi Minh City Department of Transport Tran Quang Lam said that ground clearance is a big reason for slow disbursement.

At the conference, Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee Phan Van Mai pointed out that the bad coordination between sectors is the culprit of work delays; therefore, he asked departments and localities to overcome this problem.

Some leaders of departments and agencies admitted that the bad coordination between sectors is a bottleneck that needs to be cleared in the coming year. Director of the Department of Information and Communications of Ho Chi Minh City Lam Dinh Thang said that Ho Chi Minh City is in dire need of innovation in governance in the new situation. To serve the innovation of city governance, the digital transformation of Ho Chi Minh City is the most important factor. He thus proposed that the topic of digital transformation and smart city construction in 2023 is digital data. This year, the city will focus on developing three groups of data including data groups for land - urban management, data group related to people's information and data groups on financial development and business.

In 2023, Ho Chi Minh City strives to provide all online public services with qualified procedures, connecting to the National Public Service Portal and national databases of ministries.

Chairman Mai noted the review of the mechanism to mobilize investment resources of the whole society, in order to achieve the goal of total social investment capital accounting for an average of 35 percent of GRDP. Specifically, he emphasized a number of things that must be done right in the first quarter of 2023. They are the completion of the proposal to raise the ceiling for public investment, criteria for attracting FDI, social investment mobilization scheme, and policies to promote overseas remittances.

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