HCM City(VNA) – Ho Chi Minh City made socio-economic development improvements while stilldealing with problems inherited from previous years after one year implementingthe Politburo’s Conclusion 21-KL/TW andthe National Assembly’s Resolution 54/2017/QH14 on piloting special mechanismsand policies for the city.

Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc made the remarks while chairing a conferencereviewing the one-year implementation of these important documents in Ho ChiMinh City on January 12.

In 2018, Ho Chi Minh City posted a GRDP growth of 8.3 percent. It welcomed 7.5million foreign visitors, who accounted for 50 percent of total foreignvisitors to Vietnam.

The city licensedthe establishment of 44,000 new enterprises, or 33 percent of the total. Labourproductivity hit 293 million VND per worker, 2.92 times higher than the nationalaverage. Budget collection hit 378.5 trillion VND, rising by 8.65 percent from2017. Attracted foreign investment capital was 7.394 billion USD.

As the most densely locality, the city managed to maintain social security andorder and carry out some special solutions for socio-economic development, hesaid.

HCM City still retains its leading economic locomotive of the country, heremarked, citing its budget contribution of over 27 percent of the nationalbudget income.

“The city needs to double efforts so it can be compared with Hong Kong,Singapore and Kuala Lumpur,” he said.

The PM commended the city on its high and quality economic growth, foreigninvestment capital attraction, investment in science and technology, smart citybuilding, startup development, and assistance to small- and medium-sizedenterprises.

He, however, warned that the city is lagging behind other big cities in theregion in terms of living quality, competitive capacity, and urban planning.

The city is dealing with aging infrastructure while its human resources fail tomeet development requirements, and many of its major infrastructure projectsare facing slow tempo, he added.

The equitization of State-owned enterprises has yet to fulfill the set goal andcrimes are happening in a complicated manner, especially stealing andforeigner-involved crimes, he said.

To tackle these problems, the leader suggested the municipal authority adopt aspecific plan to implement the Government’s Resolution 01 and the NationalAssembly’s Resolution 54.

The city needs to bein the vanguard of many fields and especially continues to see science, technology,renovation, and creation as its ways to the future, he noted.

He suggested central sectors and branches continue giving the city more powerto enable it to be proactive in implementing socio-economic development tasksin a “more drastic manner”.

He stressed the need for the city to make better planning for urban andtransport infrastructure development and better inter-regional linkages, alongwith addressing traffic issues and fighting crimes.

The city should focus on dealing with prolonged pressing problems, especiallythe resettlement relating to Thu Thiem area, to strengthen trust and createconsensus among people.

Flooding, and road and environment planning in new urban areas need to besolved, he said.-VNA