At the reception, Mr. Vivian Balakrishnan thanked HCMC’s leaders for warm welcome; he expressed his impression at the good development of HCMC compared to his first visit to HCMC in 1996. Mr. Vivian Balakrishnan said Vietnam-Singapore trade exchange in the last 20 years has continuously increased.  Vietnam, including HCMC, is an attractive investment market with good prospects. Therefore, Singapore has become the biggest investor in HCMC, this is a clear proof for good cooperation relation between Vietnam and Singapore in general and Vietnam and HCMC in particular.

Mr. Vivian Balakrishnan emphasized that Singapore hopes to attract enterprises of HCMC to invest in Singapore. In addition, he added that Singaporean people especially like Vietnamese products including Vietnamese rice and food.

Mr. Vivian Balakrishnan highly valued exchanging activities between both countries’ people through increasing number of visitors of both sides. Therefore, both sides need to strengthen political exchanging relation, especially policy exchange, to boost economic development cooperation in fields of aviation services, to increase number of flights between Singapore and Hanoi, HCMC and Da Nang. He said that Singapore hopes to receive more Vietnamese students studying in Singapore.

Expressed his delight at the good relation between both countries, Chairman Nguyen Thanh Phong said Vietnam-Singapore strategic partnership signed in 2013 has been well developed. Since 1996, Singapore always remains as one of the leading trade partners of Vietnam. Vietnam and Singapore has actively cooperated in many fields like economy, education, trade and investment, etc.

Mr. Phong expressed his belief that as a member of TPP and ASEAN Community, Vietnam-Singapore relations will continue to develop in the future.

In his brief introduction of HCMC, Mr. Phong said Singapore is the biggest foreign investor of HCMC with 850 projects worth US$ 9, 5 billion. In order to maintain its position of ideal destination for Singaporean investors, HCMC’s authority always creates favorable conditions and provides positive support to foreign investors, including Singaporean investors, to ensure effective operation of investors in the city.

Mentioning about fields that HCMC is calling for investment, Mr. Phong said the city hopes to receive support of Singapore in term of providing training courses of urban management, bio-technology, e-commerce, etc. Currently, HCMC’s authority is actively making efforts to build HCMC a modern city to improve living quality of local people. The city is in the process of building Metro routes to handle traffic congestion. The city is also calling for investment in fields of environment, water management, turning waste treatment into energy, infrastructure.

Mr. Nguyen Thanh Phong expressed his hope that the visit of Mr. Vivian Balakrishnan will be a catalyst for Singaporean enterprises to invest in HCMC.

HCM CITYWEB