In the next 5 years, Ho Chi Minh City needs nearly 4 quadrillion VND outside the budget to create the “shape” of a global, creative, and compassionate city. That is, this spring is the beginning of a new era for businesses to participate in the comprehensive “major surgery” of the largest urban area in Vietnam.
In the next 5 years, Ho Chi Minh City needs nearly 4 quadrillion VND outside the budget to create the “shape” of a global, creative, and compassionate city. That is, this spring is the beginning of a new era for businesses to participate in the comprehensive “major surgery” of the largest urban area in Vietnam.
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| Ho Chi Minh City needs to mobilize nearly 4 million billion VND of non-budgetary investment capital to conduct a "historic surgery". |
"Historical "major surgery"
It is not by chance that at the announcement of the Ho Chi Minh City Planning for the period 2021 - 2030, with a vision to 2050, Secretary of the Ho Chi Minh City Party Committee Nguyen Van Nen exclaimed that this is a special moment, the "biggest gift ever" for the City to make a strong breakthrough. The reason is that this planning has a series of breakthroughs.
That is the orientation of developing multi-center urban areas combined with developing transport infrastructure systems connecting the centers to reduce population compression in central areas. That is investing in the construction of closed Ring Roads 2 and 3, completing Metro lines 1 and 2, investing in completing 8 Metro lines; reorganizing the urban area according to the TOD urban development model.
That is to clearly define the development direction of 4 industrial development zones: concentrated industrial zone, developing key industries (Binh Chanh district); innovation and high-tech zone, developing potential industries (Cu Chi and Hoc Mon districts); supporting industrial zone associated with regional linkage (Thu Duc city); clean industrial zone associated with marine economy, environmental protection and nature conservation (Nha Be and Can Gio districts).
At the announcement of the Ho Chi Minh City Planning for the period 2021 - 2030, with a vision to 2050, from the event of Mr. Pham Nhat Vuong "enthusiastic" about the proposal to build a subway system, Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh sent a message to the City's leaders: "We have to assign many tasks to large enterprises, I am currently assigning some tasks to help people form their thinking. Resources come from thinking, motivation comes from innovation. We must thoroughly understand this spirit when implementing the planning".
It is also the organization of urban space in a multi-center, multi-functional orientation combining urban - service - industry; building and forming an urban system of the city including the central urban area (inner city districts) meeting the standards of a special urban area and 4 affiliated urban areas (Thu Duc City, the northern urban area including Hoc Mon - Cu Chi, the western urban area including Binh Chanh district, the southern urban area including Nha Be district, Can Gio district and District 7).
In particular, as Dr. Tran Du Lich, Chairman of the Advisory Council for the implementation of Resolution 98/2023/QH15 of Ho Chi Minh City, the highlight of this planning is the direction of "sticking to the river, towards the sea". Specifically, the planning of the Saigon riverside road system opens up a new direction for urban, commercial and service development, creating a highlight of the river landscape, attracting domestic and foreign tourists, and at the same time creating a new traffic axis along the North - South corridor.
Developing the marine economic space through planning and investing in key projects such as Can Gio International Transit Port; Can Gio Free Trade Zone; offshore wind power plant projects; new southern coastal route serving marine economic development...
This planning also identifies that the number 1 priority is key development industries with a solid development foundation and the ability to create breakthrough economic growth such as high-tech industry, logistics, digital services, financial services, etc. The planning also creates a new development space for the City through orienting the planning of underground space, water space, and digital space, thereby expanding development space...
The clarity of the project and the planning period, as Dr. Tran Du Lich said, helps people and businesses visualize what the city will look like in 5 or 10 years, creating confidence in the development issue.
Capital of 4 million billion VND needs to be mobilized and commitment
According to Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee Phan Van Mai, to have financial resources to carry out the "major surgery", the City focuses on mobilizing enough investment capital in 2025 of more than 620,000 billion VND, of which the budget capital is about 120,000 billion VND, mobilizing social capital sources about 500,000 billion VND. In the period of 2026 - 2030, it is estimated to mobilize over 4.4 million billion VND, of which the budget capital is 1.1 million billion VND, needing to mobilize social capital sources over 3.3 million billion VND.
Thus, most of the investment resources for the comprehensive "major surgery" and for key new projects are non-budgetary sources.
Ho Chi Minh City commits to creating the best and most favorable conditions for investors in the process of learning and carrying out investment procedures.
- Chairman of Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee Phan Van Mai made a commitment at the announcement of Ho Chi Minh City Planning for the period 2021 - 2030, with a vision to 2050.
The solution proposed by Ho Chi Minh City is to prioritize the allocation of state budget capital to accelerate the implementation of projects that are behind schedule, have a detailed plan to implement a list of key projects, and ensure synchronization; and increase the application of public-private partnership (PPP) forms in infrastructure investment and construction.
Along with that, focus on attracting strategic investors, high technology, new and advanced technology, modern management; publicize and make transparent information about investment opportunities, ensure fairness in selecting investors; promote administrative reform, enhance dialogue to resolve difficulties and problems for businesses, especially with project groups with legal problems...
Business: “Opportunity!”
Instead of young entrepreneurs who are full of business “blood”, I sent the summary of the Ho Chi Minh City Planning to Mr. Lien Khui Thin. Formerly Vice Chairman of the Board of Directors of Epco Company, sentenced to death in the Epco - Minh Phung case, then had his sentence reduced by special amnesty, from 2009 until now, Mr. Thin seems to be content with running a small company “enough to eat, enough to earn, enough to be safe for himself and his employees”.
“Oh, that’s a great opportunity!” Mr. Thin exclaimed, surprising me. The new points of the Ho Chi Minh City Planning seemed to have rekindled the “business” fire in him that had been thought to have died out.
CEO Nguyen Lam Vien hurriedly “asked” me for the planning to “ponder over”. He is the one who spent decades building the world-famous Vinamit brand, then did not go to the US to live with his wife and children, but chose to stay in Vietnam to build organic farms, attract young entrepreneurs to contribute and gradually change consumer awareness, change the way engineers and farmers work. So, it is not difficult to understand why this CEO over 60 years old is interested in projects related to high-tech agriculture that will be prioritized for investment in Cu Chi district.
The groundbreaking planning to elevate Ho Chi Minh City to a global level has attracted the "enthusiastic" attention of many big businessmen, as Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh said at the announcement of the Planning: "I discussed with Mr. Vuong Vingroup (Mr. Pham Nhat Vuong - PV) about building a subway system from the center of Ho Chi Minh City to Can Gio district. He agreed and was very enthusiastic."
Need boldness of Ho Chi Minh City and determination of Central Government
However, many businesses are still hesitant because they have invested money and effort but are struggling with infrastructure projects "related" to the State. This problem is real. Looking at BOT projects, after a period of strong development (2011 - 2015), from 2016 to now, private businesses have almost avoided infrastructure projects because many projects face bad debts and have difficulty recovering capital.
Or the same with PPP projects, at the end of 2024, at the 8th Session of the 15th National Assembly, many National Assembly deputies frankly stated that mobilizing non-budgetary resources in this way is still very limited due to many barriers and concerns of businesses. A typical example is the nearly 10,000 billion VND flood prevention project invested by Trung Nam Construction Investment Joint Stock Company in the form of BT. There are so many obstacles in the mechanism that the project, although having reached more than 90% of the volume, has had to be suspended from 2020 until now, causing businesses to "bury their efforts and opportunities".
The main solution for Ho Chi Minh City to make a breakthrough is to apply the special mechanism of Resolution 98/2023/QH15 of the National Assembly. However, according to the report on the implementation results of the Resolution of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee, the implementation in 2024 still has many limitations.
In particular, policies on mobilizing and using resources to help the City maximize its potential and strengths, develop quickly and strongly (such as priority policies to attract strategic investors to invest in building innovation centers, research and development centers; chip production, semiconductors, new materials, clean energy; attracting strategic investors to invest in the Can Gio International Transit Port Construction Project...) have not been issued with implementation plans, leading to ineffective solutions to the City's bottlenecks.
In 2024, Ho Chi Minh City has only completed 35/51 tasks assigned by the Prime Minister... To be fair, besides subjective reasons, there are still many obstacles beyond authority. Typically, according to the City People's Committee, the breakthrough and outstanding mechanisms and policies in Resolution No. 98/2023/QH15 are piloted, but in the implementation instructions, the City still has to follow the current procedures. Meanwhile, only ministries and branches are allowed to issue procedures, the City has not been decentralized to implement.
Therefore, for the "major surgery" of Ho Chi Minh City to be successful, all departments and branches of the Central Government and the City must "mobilize" vigorously.
Source: https://baodautu.vn/tphcm-voi-4-trieu-ty-dong-va--ky-nguyen-moi-cho-doanh-nghiep-d243714.html
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