HCM City reported a GRDP growth rate of 6.54 percent in the first quarter of the year compared with the same period of 2023, with positive growth rates for all service sectors. 

However, analysts warned that the high growth rate just reflected the very low GRDP (gross regional domestic product) growth rate in the first quarter of 2023 (0.7 percent).

HCM City potential and advantages still cannot be exploited effectively, while the dynamism and leading role of the city in the region and the whole country are declining. It’s contribution to the country’s GDP has decreased year after year, from over 20 percent to 16.5 percent in 2023.

Minister of Planning and Investment Nguyen Chi Dung said at the workshop on HCM City development planning earlier this year that the city is like a spring which is being compressed.

He hopes that the HCM City development planning in 2021-2030, with a vision towards 2050, with the new way of thinking, approach and vision, will remove the compressing factors, to help the city bounce back.

Nguyen Dinh Cung, former head of the Central Institute of Economic Management (CIEM), believes the key to the development of HCM City is institutional reform.

“HCM City needs a new institutional regime and its nature must be a market economy,” he commented.

He said that it is necessary to focus on an institutional regime which promotes the development of markets, so that they play the leading role in mobilizing, distributing and using resources in the right way as per the instructions by the 13th Party Congress, replacing the current ask-and-grant based scheme.

Only when the market can play the leading role in resource allocation will labor-intensive enterprises be forced to move other localities which are more suitable to them, thus helping use resources more effectively.

An institutional regime with "more market, more freedom and more sophistication" will create opportunities and even pressure that will speed up people, businesses and state agencies to carry out innovation. Only in such an environment will talented people have their "wide field of action" and devote themselves to the country’s development.

To Van Truong, a well known expert, commented that HCM City Party Committee Secretary Nguyen Van Nen and Mayor Phan Van Mai have realized the bottlenecks that have hindered the development of the national economy, and have released important decisions to speed up site clearance to promote public investment and solve problems to promote the city’s economic growth.

He stressed that municipal authorities need to take prompt action rather than sit and wait for the central government’s measures, because opportunities will be missed as time passes by. HCMC needs to listen to the opinions of experts and consult with them about important issues to develop the city.

Nguyen Anh Tuan, CEO of the Boston Global Forum, believes that the breakthrough ideas for HCM City lie in the digital economy and AI society. In the AI (artificial intelligence) era, it is necessary to create new resources, new opportunities and optimal administration models for local authorities, businesses and every citizen, allowing them to become creative, thereby making their lives better and more civilized.

Tuan suggested creating a digital model and infrastructure, removing complicated and ambiguous regulations in state management, proposing the removal of administrative procedures that hinder the production and business, and creating most favorable conditions for businesses and citizens. All public services must be available on the internet in a simple and synchronous way for easy use.

Tuan said that HCM City can directly connect the world’s most advanced innovation centers via Global Enlightenment Mountain (GEM), a new Silicon Valley model of the economic alliance of the US, Japan, Europe and India, thereby connecting the Vietnamese young resources with GEM.

Lan Anh