Trần Phú Lữ, director of the Investment and Trade Promotion Centre of HCM City, at its review conference in HCM City on January 6. — Photo courtesy of ITPC

HCM CITY — The Investment and Trade Promotion Centre of HCM City will continue to help businesses expand their export markets, improve competitiveness and accelerate digital and green transformation, Trần Phú Lữ, its director has said.

According to a report at a conference the ITPC organised to review its trade and investment promotion activities in 2024 and outline tasks for 2025 in HCM City this week, the centre organised 195 trade and investment promotion activities last year, an increase of 35.4 per cent from the previous year.

They included 82 domestic and 23 overseas trade promotion programmes and 51 for investment promotion, which enabled businesses to expand their markets, fostered investment cooperation and drove the city's economic growth.

Lữ described 2024 as a challenging year but said the ITPC managed to navigate it, continuing support for businesses in expanding export markets, improving their competitiveness, fostering trade connections, and organising trade and investment promotion activities to attract investments to the city in 2025.

According to the ITPC, the city remains steadfast in its goal of enhancing economic growth, ensuring social stability, helping businesses improve their competitiveness and boost exports, and attracting investment.

The goal was to achieve steady export growth and effectively exploit the tax reductions offered by free trade agreements.

Its investment promotion activities would prioritise high-tech industries and those with high added-value, low labour intensity and alignment with the city’s planning and development orientations.

Promotions would be diversified to better capitalise on cooperation opportunities with traditional strategic partners and emerging markets.

Its investment promotion activities would encourage expansion by large corporations with successful projects in Việt Nam.

Activities to foster linkages between HCM City and localities across various economic regions in the country and develop local supply chains would be organised.

To support investors, the ITPC would strengthen its role as a source of information and guidance with respect to administrative procedures.

Addressing the challenges faced by foreign enterprises was given special attention to create a transparent, competitive and efficient investment environment.

Dialogues between businesses and the city authorities would continue to be organised regularly to ensure the former get timely and unequivocal responses.

This year, the ITPC would also evaluate the competitiveness of the city administration through the Department and District Competitiveness Index based on surveys assessing the satisfaction levels of the business community.

The results would be used to improve service quality, accelerate administrative reforms, and raise the city's position in the Provincial Competitiveness Index.

Serving as a bridge between State agencies, domestic and foreign investors and the business community, the ITPC would also collaborate with diplomatic agencies, promotional organisations, and associations, and businesses to ensure that trade and investment promotion activities in 2025 achieve the highest results, contributing to the city’s sustainable development and prosperity,. — VNS