HCM CITY — The HCM City authorities will focus on administrative reform and an improved investment environment for businesses for 2019.

“The city has determined that 2019 is the year for administrative reform breakthroughs and will successfully deploy the National Assembly’s Resolution 54 on piloting special mechanisms and policies for the city’s development,” Nguyễn Thành Phong, chairman of the city People’s Committee, said at a meeting held yesterday on socio-economic development.

“Administrative reform will be strongly promoted in depth to create satisfaction for local residents and businesses,” he said. “To reach the target, each department and industry will have detailed action plans that closely link with the current mission to deal with dissatisfied residents and businesses.”

He pointed out that since the beginning of the year, total turnover of retail and services has increased by 12 per cent in comparison with 10 per cent during the same period last year.

“Authorities must retain the speed of growth for the rest of the year,” he said.

The chairman said that the 5-year plan should reach all of its targets. “We have 20 months to complete our plan and I would like to know which targets can be finished in time and which targets cannot be reached. We must deal with all current problems to gain the goal,” he said.

Phong instructed the Planning and Investment Department to review all administrative procedure issues and announce the results in an upcoming meeting with FDI enterprises this month.

“The department will be in charge of organising a budget disbursement conference to ensure there will be no late disbursements which occurred in 2018,” he said.

Trần Vĩnh Tuyến, deputy chairman of the municipal People’s Committee, announced at the meeting that the Prime Minister had agreed to allow HCM City to increase the total investment for Metro Line number 1 from Bến Thành Market in District 1 to Suối Tiên Tourism Park in District 9.

“All procedures will be completed by mid-April,” he said.

Tuyến explained that the Government had borrowed VNĐ31 trillion (US$1.35 billion) from Japan for the metro project, but only VNĐ12 trillion ($520 million) has been disbursed.

“When the Prime Minister approves the increase in capital investment for metro, the remaining VNĐ19 trillion ($830 million) will be disbursed,” he said.

“The Department of Planning and Architecture should work with the Department of Natural Resources and Environment to review Decision 60 (which took effect in January last year) allowing large plots of land to be divided into smaller plots, including land plots that have been part of delayed plans,” he said.

In the first two months of the year, the city economy performed fairly well. Foreign direct investment (FDI) reached $1.02 billion, an increase of 94.7 per cent from last year. Exports were $6.25 billion, an increase of 16 per cent. Imports totalled $7 billion, an increase of 3.6 per cent.

Services and retail sales grew by 12 per cent and industrial output by 6.21 per cent.

The four key industries -- engineering and automation; electronics; chemicals, rubber and plastics; and food processing -- continued to perform strongly, expanding markets, investing in technology, improving quality and competitiveness, and growing at nearly 6.46 per cent.

In the period, 4,400 new companies with a total registered capital of VNĐ94.2 trillion ($4.1 billion) were licensed, up 78.7 per cent from the same period last year.

Job creation, vocational training and support for the poor were carried out efficiently to ensure social welfare. The number of jobs created rose marginally to 25,000, representing 16 per cent of the year’s target. — VNS