Võ Văn Hoan, deputy chairman of the city People’s Committee, speaks at a review meeting of the HCM City Union of Business Associations in HCM City on Wednesday. — Photo courtesy of HUBA

HCM CITY — The HCM City Union of Business Associations has proposed a number of measures to help businesses overcome challenges and foster green growth and digital transformation this year.

Speaking at a meeting held on January 17 to review the association’s performance last year and set tasks for 2024 Nguyễn Phước Hưng, its vice chairman, called on the city government to provide financial, legal and technological support to firms registering for green transformation.  

He exhorted the central government to start a programme for reducing greenhouse emissions with a specific road map, build a green index, establish a carbon credit market and develop rooftop solar power, helping businsses improve their competitiveness and participate in the global supply chain.

He urged the city to have solutions to attract new FDI inflows and reform long-standing industrial parks and export processing zones, speed up public investment, and enable businesses to bid for public projects and borrow from the city’s stimulus programme.

Võ Văn Hoan, deputy chairman of the city People’s Committee, praised HUBA’s contributions, saying it has played an important role in connecting the Government and businesses, helped the city administration improve the investment environment and promoted administrative reform.

Considering the challenges this year, it is again expected to make a significant contribution to the economy and business sector, he said.

He noted that the city has set two important tasks for the business community this year: adopting green growth and fostering digital transformation so that they could expand their international market share.

“Green growth is an inevitable development trend, and businesses must embrace it to meet requirements, especially in fastidious markets.”

He said the city would focus on three pillars this year: policies to help adopt green transformation, criteria to measure emissions by businesses and industries so that they could find ways to reduce them and creating a good role model for green growth.

It also plans to establish a centre for supporting digital transformation, he said.

The city is welcoming a wave of foreign investment in semiconductors and artificial intelligence, and it is also an opportunity for businesses, he said.

They need to take advantage of this wave and participate in the supply chains of leading corporations, he said.

The city has sufficient resources in all aspects like land, industrial parks and high-quality human resources to meet the needs of these high-tech industries, he assured.

The HCM City Union of Business Associations launches the new interface of its website: huba.vn in HCM City on January 17. — Photo courtesy of HUBA

Nguyễn Ngọc Hòa, HUBA’s chairman, said last year it took a number of measures to help business overcome difficulties.

It passed on to authorities various recommendations made by businesses to remove hurdles they faced in many areas such as real estate and corporate bonds, and this helped eliminate many long-standing bottlenecks, he said.

This year it would organise programmes such as the HCM City Economic Forum, HCM City’s ‘Exemplary Products and Services’ and Green Business Awards, ‘Business Café’, trade promotions at home and abroad, and trade fairs to showcase Vietnamese goods, he said.

Also at the event, the association launched the new interface of its website, huba.vn. — VNS