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HCMC should choose strategic priorities for its development orientation: expert

HCMC should choose strategic priorities for its development orientation: expert

A view of an HCMC seaport. HCMC needs to work out some strategic priorities in order to strive to become a modern industrial service city – PHOTO: LE ANH

HCMC – HCMC needs to work out some strategic priorities in order to strive to become a modern industrial service city with gross regional domestic product (GRDP) per capita reaching US$13,000 by 2030, attendees were told at a conference on May 5.

Speaking at the conference on the city’s development orientation for the 2021-2030 period with a vision toward 2045, Dr. Vu Thanh Tu Anh, Dean of Fulbright School of Public Policy and Management, pointed out the city’s weaknesses and suggested some breakthrough measures.

The Fulbright representative said the city should not implement its development plan in a scattered manner as there will never be enough time, policies and human resources to do so. Also, the city should gradually eliminate industrial sectors and switch to service industries.

“If the city continues to position itself as an industrial city, the move is not only unfeasible but will also result in the city losing oppurtunities for further growth in the next two decades,” he added.

Earlier, the city’s economy relied heavily on low costs, foreign investment, the private economic sector and people from other localities coming into the city, but the economic growth rate remained low. In the next decade, the growth momentum should be productive, which can be achieved by developing the domestic private economic sector.

Besides this, the city needs to promote domestic competiveness and create the most competitive and marketable environment. Or else, it will lag behind, he said.

Dr. Anh added that the southern hub should encourage the productivity increase and infrastructure development as well as establish the city’s key sector groups, including the country’s international financial hub set to be located in HCMC.

Further, the city needs to switch to an innovation-driven economy from an investment-based one. To do so, the city will have to have highly-skilled human resources, a science and technology base and policies to promote innovation in competitive sectors.

According to Dr. Tran Du Lich, the city has to review its resilience to economic uncertainties. For HCMC to continue to be Vietnam’s economic leader, the city in the next 10 years will have to maintain its growth rate 1.2-1.5 times higher than the country’s average level.

Earlier at the meeting, chairman of the municipal government Nguyen Thanh Phong said that the city last year still obtained economic growth at 1.39%, saw over VND371 trillion in budget collection and accounted for over 25% of the national budget collection, despite the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.

By 2030, the city is set to become a modern industrial service city, a leading city in Vietnam by digital economy and society and a financial, commercial, science-technology and cultural hub in Southeast Asia.

By 2045, it will strive to become a financial hub in Asia, achieve sustainable development, ensure a high quality of life with the GRDP per capita reaching US$37,000 and become a global destination.

To reach these goals, the HCMC chairman said that the city needs to analyze and assess its conditions for development and seek breakthrough measures in the new normal.

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