Expressed by Chairman of HCMC People’s Committee Nguyen Thanh Phong at the meeting with German Consul General in HCMC Andreas Thomas Siegel at October 6.

Mr. Phong said Vietnam-Germany political relations have been well-developed and achieved good results in various fields and typical projects such as German House, Vietnam-Germany University, support of KfW (German Reconstruction Bank) for Metro line No 2 (Ben Thanh-Tham Luong section).

At local level, Germany is now one of the largest trade & investment partners of HCMC with two way trade of US$ 1, 7 billion in 2015 and US$ 1, 4 billion in the first nine months of 2016. Germany is now ranked 18th out of 79 countries and territories investing in HCMC with 117 projects worth US$ 110 million. Especially, HCMC and Leipzig city (Germany) have signed MOU on establishment of friendship relationship, Medica (Germany) 175 Hospital (Vietnam) are carrying out cooperating activities in field of sports medicine.

Mr. Phong added it is a target of HCMC to build it a smart city, a financial-commercial-scientific-technical center of the region. To achieve this, the city is now focusing on key industries like food processing, chemical-rubber, mechanical engineering and electronics, information technology.
 
“HCMC is now taking use of every internal and external sources to move forward to sustainable development with a focus on calling for foreign cooperation investment, including Germany”, Mr. Phong said.

Mr. Phong expressed his hope that Mr. Andreas Thomas Siegel as German Consul General in HCMC will promote many more investment cooperation programs in the coming time to further deepen and tighten good relations between Vietnam and Germany.

Mr. Andreas Thomas Siegel said both sides have been developing on the foundation of long-lasted and well developed cooperation relations. He stressed that Germany is willing to support and cooperate with HCMC in fields that Germany has strength. In addition, he added that Germany has years of experience in urban management and environment, saying Germany is ready for sharing with HCMC.

HCM CITYWEB