HCM City must accelerate economic growth to achieve this year’s target of 8.3 per cent, a government meeting held yesterday to review socio-economic development in the first 10 months heard.— Photo vneconomy.vn

HCM CITY — HCM City must accelerate economic growth to achieve this year’s target of 8.3 per cent, a government meeting held yesterday to review socio-economic development in the first 10 months heard.

“Trade, service and tourism must achieve a high growth rate of 9 per cent in the last two months of this year to achieve the 8.3 per cent target,” Nguyễn Thành Phong, chairman of the city People’s Committee delivered, said.

“This is the year-end season and goods produced for festivals are expected to increase by 20 per cent year-on-year,” a Department of Industry and Trade official said.

“We believe this would bring significant growth in food and drink and retail sales. In addition, key industries like chemicals, textile, footwear, and engineering have achieved good growth and the year’s growth target will be achieved.”

The tourism industry has confirmed it would achieve the year’s targeted foreign arrival numbers.

“In the first 10 months the city received 6.1 million foreign visitors and another 1.5 million will come in the last two months,” a tourism department official said.

Room bookings are up 10 per cent from last year.

“Tourism promotion by HCM City is still limited with many countries not knowing about our tourism potential. The Department of Tourism must soon submit its strategies for tourism development in collaboration with other industries to the People’s Committee to create new products,” Phong said.

He instructed the Department of Natural Resources and Environment to report on land management.

Nguyễn Toàn Thắng, the director of the department, said the department had reviewed land usage at 2,822 projects and 1,497 plots of land which were allotted, rented or sold in 2012 –17.

“We will report the entire situation to the People’s Committee next week to resolve all related problems.”

Phong urged the department to resolve incomplete land procedures in some projects saying this has caused trouble for investors since they cannot do anything with the land [until the procedures are completed].

“We must stop the situation of State-owned enterprises using land for wrong purposes. We must repossess land and auction if necessary.”

The city’s revenue collections in the first 10 months increased by almost 10 per cent to VNĐ306.3 trillion ($13.3 billion).

FDI grew to nearly $6.22 billion, an increase of 23.7 per cent for last year.

Exports were worth around $31.3 billion, an increase of 7.1 per cent.

Services and retail sales grew by 12.9 per cent and industrial output by 7.85 per cent.

The city’s four key industries -- engineering and automation; electronics; chemicals, rubber, plastics; and food processing -- continued to perform strongly, expanding markets, investing in technology and improving quality and competitiveness, and growing at nearly 7.8 per cent.

This year 35,585 new companies with a combined registered capital of VNĐ810 trillion ($35.2 billion) have been licensed, 13 per cent up from the same period last year.

Job creation, vocational training and support for poor people have been carried out efficiently to ensure social welfare.

The number of jobs created rose marginally to 129,000. — VNS