Le Thanh Hai from the HCMC Institute for Development Studies also warned of the "middle-income trap" and low labor productivity. 

"Current labor productivity is not strong enough to carry a growth rate of 10-12 percent," Hai said. When cheap labor advantages disappear, if the city does not promptly transition to the knowledge-based economy, the growth rate will stall.

Furthermore, inconsistent strategic infrastructure and high logistics costs are becoming a "barometer" measuring the city's competitiveness. 

However, according to experts, challenges in infrastructure or human resources are only the tip of the iceberg. The real bottleneck lies deep in the "operating system."

"To accelerate the HCMC economic machine, the important issue now is not just adding more 'fuel,' but releasing the bottlenecks in the 'gearbox' and 'operating system' to create new breakthrough energy," Tinh said.

When macro policies are clear and the consensus of the business community is ready, the final knot is execution capacity in both public and private sectors. 

Hai said: "If we consider infrastructure and human resource challenges as 'hardware,' then execution capacity is the 'operating system.' To run 'software' for double-digit growth, we must upgrade the 'operating system' first."

Sandbox mechanism and internal resources

Stagnation often comes from a fear of responsibility and legal overlap. To solve this at the root, Tinh said that protecting officials is a prerequisite. 

He argued that if executing officials are not protected when following the right processes and public service goals, the trend of "staying still for safety" will prevail, slowing down public investment decisions and pilot models. At that point, double-digit growth will remain just a slogan.

To realize the 2026 goal, experts propose an actionable roadmap, focusing on unlocking "frozen" resources. One solution is activating the giant block of public assets after mergers.

Tinh suggested the city needs to digitize and design transparent models such as PPP, auctions, or long-term leases to turn these "dead assets" into "development capital" for infrastructure and the digital economy.

In terms of institutional regime, establishing a sandbox mechanism - controlled testing - is mandatory so that initiatives do not get stuck in legal "gray areas." 

Hai proposed establishing special task forces with superior authority to coordinate key projects, helping shift from a management mindset to a promotion mindset. And applying modern governance indicators like KPI (Key Performance Indicators) and OKR (Objectives and Key Results) of the private sector to the administrative apparatus will help link individual responsibility with specific growth results.

Finally, to solve the talent need for spearhead industries such as AI, data, semiconductors, cybersecurity, and biotechnology, the city should not stop at individual incentives. It needs to build a "comprehensive ecosystem" for talent.

This includes income, housing, world-class working and research environments, startup opportunities, powerful computing infrastructure, open data, and specific mechanisms for taxes and visas. 

"Otherwise, it will be difficult for the city to create a wave of fast-growing tech companies. Talent will come when they see a developing ecosystem, not just because of an initial support amount," Tinh said.

The double-digit growth goal for 2026 is an ambitious but feasible plan if HCMC is determined to "upgrade" its execution capacity. When the administrative apparatus truly becomes a partner instead of a controller, the city's economic machine will naturally find the energy to break through all barriers.

At the 6th session of the 10th People's Council and conferences implementing socio-economic tasks, HCMC set a breakthrough goal with a GRDP growth scenario of over 10 percent for 2026. The basis for this confidence stems from the impressive recovery momentum in 2025 with estimated growth reaching 8.03 percent, creating a solid premise for the acceleration phase.

The city is currently building three flexible growth scenarios, in which the highest scenario (10 percent) is based on expectations of positive shifts in the world economy and the early effective utilization of specific mechanisms from Resolution 260 that amends and supplements Resolution 98.

The HCMC Statistics Office calculated that the city's total economic scale has reached approximately VND3 quadrillion. To realize the ambitious goal, the city must create at least an additional VND300 trillion in added value. Meanwhile, the total investment capital from the state budget assigned for 2026 is only about VND150 trillion.

Quoc Ngoc