HCM City is giving the priority to luring new-generation foreign direct invest (FDI) in the fields of high technology and urban development, along with FDI attraction in the four main industries and two traditional sectors.

Ho Chi Minh City is paying attention to attract new-generation FDI - Illustrative image

According to Su Ngoc Anh, Director of the municipal Department of Planning, if the city attracted only 3.46 billion USD in 2016, the figure rose to 6.6 billion USD in 2017, a year-on-year increase of more than 90 percent, and 1.55 billion USD in the first four months of this year.

This is an encouraging result for the city’s economic development, Anh said, adding that the city’s proportion in the nation’s FDI attraction increased from 13 percent in 2016 to 18.4 percent last year.

The city is exerting efforts to call for investment in 190 projects, focusing on the development of smart and innovative urban areas. Innovative urban areas which are calling for investment include District 2, District 9 and Thu Duc district. Ho Chi Minh City expects the success of these areas will pave the way for the development of smart urban areas.

The city will also step up investment in hi-tech sectors to build modern urban areas such as automobile industry, support industry, environment technology and renewable energy.

Most of foreign investors have shown their appreciation of and back for the city’s urban development efforts. A representative from the Italian Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam pledged to share experience in building smart cities in Milan and Genoa port, while the American Chamber of Commerce (Amcham) established the US-Vietnam Association of Smart Cities.

To attract new-generation FDI effectively and carry out development projects successfully, the municipal People’s Committee is taking drastic measures to improve the investment environment, with attention paid to stepping up administrative procedure reform, simplifying or abolishing unnecessary procedures, and expanding the application of information technology in addressing administrative procedures related to investment attraction.

Chairman of the committee Nguyen Thanh Phong said that the city pledges to solve businesses’ difficulties in order to avoid hampering the goods circulation as well as putting burden on enterprises.

The time for tackling procedures involved in house and land asset property will be cut down from 57 days to 14 days for organisations and businesses.

An inter-sectoral working group will be formed with Chairman Phong acting as its head. The working group, the first of its kind in Vietnam, aims to assist the handling of all investment procedures until a project receives investment licence, with a goal of reducing at least 50 percent of processing time as regulated. 

It will also focus on the two big problems facing foreign investors: calculation of ground clearance compensations and local authorities’ transfer of land for investors.-VNA