At the meeting, Director of HCMC Department of Planning and Investment Su Ngoc Anh revealed the city saw a GRDP growth of 7.87% in the first 6 months of 2018, proportion of high quality services with competitive advantages include trade, finance-banking-insurance, tourism, communications, transport-warehouse, science-technology, real estate, education and health. These 9 sectors account for 57.6% of the city’s GRDP.

The city’s 4 key industries earned a growth rate of 9.55%, higher than that of the whole industry. Amongst, electronics-IT sectors increased by 1.15% as of the same period. Chairman Phong stressed that the city is a big industrial production centre of the whole country, but the picture of industrial development in the first 6 months slows down. He quoted that 4 key industries create 54% of total value of the whole sector, accounting for 10% of GRDP. “Processing, manufacturing & mining (two of 4 key industries) of the whole country enjoy a significant increase in the first 6 months”, added Mr. Phong. In terms of IT and electronics sectors, despite of high growth but account for a small rate of the whole sector.  Mr. Phong added that the city relies much on the 4 key industries but the achieve results are not as expected. He requested Director of Industry and Trade Department to analyse the reasons why these industries fail to make breakthroughs and what are the solutions for the rest 6 months of 2018.

Mentioning the results of foreign investment attraction, Mr. Phong said the average capital scale per FDI project is very small, US$1 million/project, it is hard to create a catalyst for the city’s development. “This puts out a demand of reviewing the current investment environment”, said Mr. Phong.

According to Mr. Phong, although the city is considered as a dynamic and creative city, but it is changing slowly. It requires to build support policies for enterprises to improve their competitiveness, product quality and brand building. “This must be accompanied renovation and creativity”, affirmed Mr. Phong. He said that he will work directly with associations and sectors to create favourable conditions for enterprises to improve their competitiveness and product quality with strong brands.

HCM CITYWEB