While dealing with internal problems and being affected by external challenges, Ho Chi Minh City has reached the target with a growth rate of 7.17% in 2024. Although it has not reached the high expectation set at the beginning of the year of 7.5-8% growth, the above achievements reflect the tireless efforts of the Party Committee, government and people of the city in a year of change.
In an interview during the Lunar New Year, Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee Phan Van Mai shared the basis for the locality to continue raising its goals for 2025, the last year of the term. This is also the time for the city to accelerate and make a breakthrough to step firmly into the new era with the whole country.
Chairman of Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee Phan Van Mai answers questions before Tet At Ty (Photo: Huu Khoa).
"Looking back at 2024, I think this is the year the city creates the foundation for 2025 and the next development process. The city has made efforts to solve problems, creating conditions to be ready to accelerate and make a breakthrough," the Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee shared.
The head of the Ho Chi Minh City government also sent the four words "joint efforts - consensus - breakthrough - success" into the new year. The success of Ho Chi Minh City in 2025 and the following period will not only come from individual efforts but also require joint efforts, consensus, and drastic actions from the government, people, and businesses.
Ho Chi Minh City aims for double-digit growth by 2025 in the context of the forecasted volatile global and domestic situation, and the city still has many internal issues that need to be addressed. In your opinion, what is the basis for Ho Chi Minh City to achieve this very high growth target?
- Ho Chi Minh City has set a growth target of at least 10% for 2025 and created the premise for maintaining this growth rate in the 2026-2030 period. For the whole country to achieve a double-digit growth target or higher, leading centers such as Ho Chi Minh City, Hanoi and other large localities must take on responsibilities higher than the national target.
The basis for the locality to set this goal is the synchronous solutions that have been focused on during the past period. The city has focused on traditional development drivers, restructuring the economic sector, and searching for new growth drivers.
Traditional driving forces such as high-quality services, high value-added industries, and export sectors are constantly renewed and aimed at higher goals than the previous period. After all, these driving forces are still the foundation, contributing greatly to the city's economy.
Ho Chi Minh City continues to renew traditional growth drivers, including exports (Photo: Hai Long).
The city's new driving forces are the digital economy and the green economy. In 2023 and 2024, Ho Chi Minh City has focused a lot on these new driving forces and brought about quite clear results, initially making certain contributions. Many businesses have practiced green criteria to approach the demanding markets of Europe and America.
That movement does not come from short actions but requires a process. Ho Chi Minh City nurtures new growth drivers until they are large enough to create a breakthrough.
Another basis for Ho Chi Minh City to expect high growth results for 2025 is the focus on removing difficulties and obstacles for projects and businesses. In 2024, with the attention from the highest leaders of the Party, State, Government, National Assembly, and the determination of Ho Chi Minh City, many projects and problems in the area have been resolved, creating jobs, sales and contributing to the budget.
With this foundation, Ho Chi Minh City continues to classify difficulties and obstacles, resolve them according to its authority or propose the Prime Minister and the Central Steering Committee to preside over the resolution. I believe that in 2025, the number of projects resolved will be greater, activities in the area will become vibrant again and make better contributions to the economy.
In the 2021-2030 planning period, with a vision to 2050, recently approved by the Prime Minister, Ho Chi Minh City needs to implement a series of large projects and works to achieve a growth rate of over 10% for 2025 and the following period. How will the city solve the problem of mobilizing resources to meet this need?
- According to the recently approved plan, Ho Chi Minh City needs at least 4.4 million billion VND to invest in projects from now until 2030, as a foundation to achieve double-digit growth. Of which, public investment capital accounts for only 25%, about 1.1 million billion VND.
The remaining 3.3 million billion VND must be mobilized from non-budgetary capital and social investment capital through mechanisms and policies. This capital is invested in transport infrastructure, urban infrastructure, information technology infrastructure, and science and technology.
The plan proposed by the city is to mobilize capital from land resources, encourage large investment projects, facilitate investment procedures, and resolve problems. Mechanisms and policies will be utilized from Resolution 98 and new mechanisms and policies will be studied so that 1 dong of budget capital can mobilize 9 dong of social investment.
We also calculate the issuance of municipal government bonds, construction bonds, and projects to immediately mobilize capital from people and overseas Vietnamese. In 2024, the amount of remittances to Ho Chi Minh City will be about 9.6 million USD. If there are good mechanisms and policies, this will be a significant resource for development.
The city does not lack capital or money, but the important issue is how to mobilize, use, and disburse funds. To prepare for this, Ho Chi Minh City not only thinks about where and how to find money, but also calculates how to take advantage of planning tools.
After having the planning, Ho Chi Minh City is urgently completing the specialized planning, zoning planning, detailed planning and reviewing land and investment procedures to ensure the project is implemented as soon as possible. In addition to the amount of money needed to mobilize, the city needs to carefully prepare the planning, documents, staff, and mindset to meet the development needs of the coming period.
With this preparation, Ho Chi Minh City aims to basically complete the internal traffic infrastructure system and connecting traffic by 2030, except for urban railway lines. The workload is huge, requiring huge capital to improve traffic jams, flooding, environmental pollution and other social needs.
Resolution 98, which piloted a number of specific mechanisms and policies for the development of Ho Chi Minh City, has officially been in effect for more than a year. Over the past year, has Ho Chi Minh City taken advantage of this resolution to remove obstacles, attract development resources and bring about concrete results?
- Objectively, in 2024, Ho Chi Minh City has basically and synchronously implemented the contents of Resolution 98 on piloting specific mechanisms and policies. The first result is that the institutions have been concretized as a framework and foundation for the following period.
Thanks to the above mechanisms and policies, budget and non-budget resources are effectively mobilized to contribute to the city's development.
Regarding the mechanisms and policies on organizational structure and decentralization, we see a clear change in Thu Duc City. Resolution 98 has greatly contributed to the organization and operation of the Thu Duc City model.
Resolution 98 has greatly contributed to the organization and operation of the Thu Duc City model (Photo: Nam Anh).
Thanks to Resolution 98, many planning problems for public investment projects, especially group B and group C projects, have been resolved with the mechanism of decentralization and delegation of authority. In addition, previous bottlenecks in investment, finance and urban areas have been resolved very well by the city with specific mechanisms and policies.
A clear demonstration of the effectiveness of the decentralization mechanism is that in 2024, districts and towns have solved their own local problems very quickly. In the coming time, this mechanism will be implemented more strongly in the spirit that once decentralized, localities will implement according to their authority, without having to ask for the opinions of the departments. In addition, large projects, even group A projects, if the locality is capable of implementing, the city will hand them over.
However, strong decentralization and delegation of power must go hand in hand with assessment of reception capacity and implementation ability. If tasks are assigned to districts, communes, and grassroots levels that are not suitable for their capacity, it can easily lead to passivity and errors.
I assess that, up to now, Resolution 98 has basically come into effect. In 2025 and the following years, this resolution will be implemented more strongly and synchronously, bringing about many breakthrough results.
In parallel with the implementation of Resolution 98, in 2025, Ho Chi Minh City will review Resolution 131 of the National Assembly on the organization of urban government in Ho Chi Minh City, Resolution 1111 of the National Assembly Standing Committee on the arrangement of administrative units at district and commune levels and the establishment of Thu Duc City. Based on the review results and research on models and regulations, the city will propose a new legal framework that is more suitable for the characteristics of a special urban area.
Resolution 57 of the Politburo identifies major orientations for breakthroughs in science, technology, innovation and national digital transformation. With its position as a major center of science, technology and innovation in the country, how can Ho Chi Minh City take advantage of this opportunity to attract more resources in 2025, to grow in the 2025-2030 period?
- Ho Chi Minh City is recognized as the center of science and technology, innovation and digital transformation of the country. In fact, in recent times, Ho Chi Minh City has made large investments, taken new steps and achieved initial results in this field.
I believe that Resolution 57 of the Politburo has opened up opportunities for breakthrough development in science and technology, innovation and digital transformation. Ho Chi Minh City will focus on infrastructure, resources and institutions to meet the requirements of Resolution 57.
The city will review and invest to move towards having a more synchronous and better infrastructure system to serve science and technology and digital transformation. Next is investing in training management human resources, science and technology human resources, and other human resources to serve businesses and people.
Ho Chi Minh City is the center of science, technology, innovation and digital transformation of the whole country (Photo: Q.Huy).
The most important point is that the locality needs to form a system of mechanisms and policies based on the foundation of Resolution 57 and Resolution 98 to mobilize breakthrough resources for science and technology development. Resources here are not only financial but also human resources and intellectual resources contributing to the city. The city needs to mobilize personnel from abroad to work, or connect to contribute remotely.
For digital transformation, Ho Chi Minh City focuses on three main elements: digital government, digital economy and digital society. Each element is oriented with specific goals and timelines.
Regarding digital government, Ho Chi Minh City strives to have at least 80% of administrative records and procedures processed online by the end of 2025. The Digital Citizen application will be a two-way interaction channel between people, businesses and the government. This is also a tool for the city to listen and make appropriate adjustments to social feedback in the digital environment.
2025 is also the time when Ho Chi Minh City will focus highly on the digital economy sector to achieve the target of the digital economy accounting for 25% of GRDP, aiming for 40% by 2030. In particular, small and medium enterprises will be strongly supported in digital transformation through budget support policies.
We are researching mechanisms and policies to support 30%, 50%, even 100% for large enterprises that want to transform digitally and develop science and technology. The support can be a shared application platform, human resource training policies, etc.
Next, the city will focus on supporting large IT enterprises to become the nucleus and core of the digital transformation sector in the area. Large enterprises will bring about a ripple effect, they are both product and service providers and innovators.
Regarding digital society, Ho Chi Minh City has also completed information technology and telecommunications infrastructure, introducing many applications for people and businesses, especially in the fields of health, education, employment, and social security. The city has invested in infrastructure so that people can access and keep up with the pace of digital life.
2025 is also the time when Ho Chi Minh City, together with the whole country, will reorganize and streamline the apparatus of the political system. Given the huge amount of work that needs to be done to firmly enter the new era, how has Ho Chi Minh City calculated so that the post-streamlined apparatus is capable of meeting the requirements?
- In the matter of restructuring and streamlining the apparatus, Ho Chi Minh City urgently and seriously implemented the Central's direction. In which, the city has studied its own characteristics, but must be consistent with the overall picture.
Agencies that are subject to consolidation, have their tasks terminated, and agencies that are not subject to rearrangement must still reorganize their internal focal points. The spirit of Ho Chi Minh City is to be proactive, not only to reorganize mechanically but also to review functions and tasks in a reasonable direction.
The arrangement and reorganization of the apparatus of Ho Chi Minh City is associated with restructuring functions, tasks, and reviewing the staff. The prerequisite is that the city does not simply streamline the payroll by 20%, but that streamlining needs to retain good personnel and have policies for unsuitable personnel.
Ho Chi Minh City studies local characteristics in streamlining the apparatus to propose to the Central Government (Photo: Hai Long).
We are at a time when we must accelerate to achieve high goals. Ho Chi Minh City is aware that restructuring the apparatus will have a certain impact on human resources, so it has a plan and appropriate steps. With careful preparation and a serious spirit of implementing the general policy, I believe that Ho Chi Minh City will overcome the initial difficulties and challenges.
When human resources are reduced, modern means must be promoted to ensure smooth work. Ho Chi Minh City recognized this early and issued a plan to build an effective and efficient Ho Chi Minh City public service in the 2024-2030 period.
Along with the restructuring of the apparatus, the project will help Ho Chi Minh City review the processes and work of the civil service in 2025. The coordination and handling of the city's work will ensure scientific, smooth operation and minimize costs of time and money.
Ho Chi Minh City also focuses on building a team of excellent civil servants through recruitment, promotion, training, support and care policies. In addition, technology is a top priority for a modern civil service in terms of hardware, software, databases, applications, etc.
This is also the reason why, in 2025, the city will continue to maintain the content of digital transformation in the theme of the year. Digital transformation will be present in the effective and efficient administration of Ho Chi Minh City and bring about many clear results.
On the threshold of the new year 2025, what message do you have for the people, businesses, and those who have always accompanied the development of Ho Chi Minh City over the past time?
- First of all, I would like to thank the people, the business community, those who have always loved and helped Ho Chi Minh City throughout the development process. I would like to send my best wishes and wish the people and people a happy Tet At Ty.
In 2025, Ho Chi Minh City will continue to have both advantages and disadvantages. The city always needs to look directly at problems, analyze them objectively and scientifically, and come up with solutions.
Looking back at 2024, I believe that this is the year the city creates the foundations for 2025 and the next development process. The city has made efforts to solve problems, creating conditions ready to accelerate and break through.
In 2025, I would like to convey the message of "joint efforts - unanimity - breakthrough - success". To develop the socio-economy, the government, people and businesses not only need to make individual efforts but also need to join hands, unanimity and take drastic actions to enter a new era with the whole country.
With the planning approved by the Prime Minister and the preparation of plans and resource mobilization plans, I am sure that Ho Chi Minh City will fundamentally solve the problems. The environment, living conditions of the people and conditions for better socio-economic development, Ho Chi Minh City's growth will reach double digits.
Thank you very much!
Content: Q.Huy
Photo: Huu Khoa
Design: Patrick Nguyen
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