HCM City — HCM City’s Department of Industry and Trade (DoIT) will focus on improving the strength and efficiency of four key industries under the city’s stimulus package until the end of this year, said Nguyễn Phương Đông, DoIT’s deputy director last week.

The four key industrial sectors are food processing, chemical rubber, mechanics and information technology.

Under the plan, the city’s DoIT will support industry development by building databases in order to create information connection among production enterprises or between manufacturers and distributors.

In addition, the department will help connect supply and demand, stabilise the market, promote local consumption, develop business points and enhance traditional market brands.

At the same time, DoIT will intensify the promotion of domestic trade in order to connect the consumption of industrial products among the enterprises in provinces and cities nationwide, while enhancing the activities to promote enterprises’ exports.

In the first six months of 2017, the total retail revenue of goods and services in HCM City reached VNĐ449.91 trillion (US$19.8 billion), up 10.2 per cent over the same period last year. Of which, retail sales of goods reached VNĐ291 trillion, a year-on-year increase of 12.2 per cent.

Total import-export turnover of the city reached approximately $2.76 million, up 27.24 per cent against last year’s period. However, this number only accounted for 45.93 per cent of the year plan because, most of the orders came in the second half of the year.

Evaluating the attractiveness of HCM City’s investment environment, representative of the DoIT said that the city had some limitations such as high renting rate due to infrastructure investment costs and difficulties in land clearance. These obstacles make it unaffordable for many enterprises to rent land.

The bank-enterprise link-up programme in HCM City has enabled over 4,600 businesses to borrow VNĐ139 trillion up to now. The conference on connecting banking and businesses, which was held in June, also resulted in 21 branches of commercial banks supporting 612 borrowers with a total capital of VNĐ49.04 trillion. — VNS