Ho Chi Minh City was ranked sixth among the most dynamic cities in the world, according to the recent 2015 City Momentum Index of the real estate services and investment management firm Jones Lang LaSalle (JLL).

The JLL office in HCM City said on July 7 that the rapid augmentation of the foreign direct investment (FDI) and spending on infrastructure helped the Vietnamese southern economic hub become the biggest improver.

Jeremy Kelly, Director within the Global Research Programmes team at JLL, said o Chi Minh City is emerging as an important economic hub in Asia, adding that investments in key infrastructure facilities there, like the first metro line, contributed to Vietnam’s GDP growth.

Ho Chi Minh City attracted more than US$1.2 billion of investments in the first half of 2015, and a US$1.4 billion Samsung factory at the Saigon Hi-tech Park illustrates foreign investors’ increasing interest in the locality, he added.

The 2015 City Momentum Index, covering 120 major established and emerging business hubs across the globe, gauges a city’s short-term socio-economic and commercial real estate momentum (over a three-year horizon) in combination with measures of ‘future-proofing’ – whether a city has the essential ingredients to ensure longer-term sustainable momentum in terms of education, innovation and environment.

The top five cities in the list are London (the UK), San Jose (the US), Beijing, Shenzhen and Shanghai (China).

VNA