HCMC – Although HCMC achieved positive socio-economic growth in the first seven months of this year, the city has seen a bumpy road to economic recovery.
Speaking at an August 4 meeting on the city’s socio-economic performance from January-July, Chairman of the HCMC People’s Committee Phan Van Mai lauded the city’s development.
But there are potential barriers, particularly rising input costs and shortages of materials, which will impact the macroeconomic situation and daily life, Mai said.
He underlined the need to enhance the coordination among departments to deal with bottlenecks in the process of carrying out public investment projects.
Currently, the disbursement rate of public investment is lower than expected, only reaching 26% of the year’s plan.
According to Mai, the huge workload induced by the strong Covid recovery effort has made things difficult.
Mai asked the Department of Home Affairs to monitor administrative reforms and discipline enforcement, and the Department of Planning and Investment to develop solutions to accelerate the disbursement of public investment.
According to Le Thi Huynh Mai, director of the HCMC Department of Planning and Investment, the pace of economic recovery has been stronger than expected as a majority of enterprises have got back to normalcy.
As tourists have returned in droves, commercial and service activities have also grown. As a result, retail sales of goods and services in July brought VND100,320 billion, rising by 1.4% over June and 139.8% over the same month last year.
The first seven months of the year saw retail sales of goods and services in HCMC amounting to VND656,119 billion, soaring by 16% year-on-year. Meanwhile, the city’s import-export activities continued to expand at a rapid pace.
The city saw the tourism industry rebound strongly between January and July, with revenue reaching VND 60,379 billion, up 57.82% year-on-year.
HCMC welcomed 13.3 million domestic visitors, increasing by 71.73% over the same period last year, while international visitors to the city totaled 765,585.
Bui Ta Hoang Vu, director of the HCMC Department of Industry and Trade, noted the recovery of production and business activities saw tangible results. Industrial production, wholesale and retail, and services activities nearly returned to pre-pandemic levels of growth.
HCMC is determined to focus on economic recovery in 2022, paving the way to implement development plans in 2023 and the following years. Many industrial enterprises are doing good business, particularly in the sectors of staple foods, garments, chemicals and food.
However, Mai said there were reasons that might stymie HCMC’s economic recovery, noting the electronics industry’s failure to rebound as planned.
Accordingly, the electronics industry revenue decreased by 4.3% in the seven-month period, mainly due to a decline in the output of consumer electronics and wiring equipment. In this context, businesses have eyed applying advanced technology and producing high-value products.
In August, the Department of Finance is assigned with a range of activities, including supervising the use of public assets, examining the off-budget financial fund and carrying out audit conclusions.
Additionally, the Department of Construction is tasked with developing a plan to renovate the Xuyen Tam canal and completing a project to address flood tides in HCMC, which is expected to be completed by the end of 2022.
