As the economic locomotive, Ho Chi Minh City has set a double-digit growth target for 2025. However, according to economic experts, to achieve this challenging goal, Ho Chi Minh City needs to focus on a number of solutions.
According to experts, in the 2017-2019 period, Ho Chi Minh City easily achieved an increase of 8% thanks to total social investment capital accounting for 40% of GRDP in 2019. However, the COVID-19 pandemic has caused a sharp decrease in total social investment capital, from VND 446,000 billion (2019) to VND 395,000 billion (2024), accounting for only over 22,2% of GRDP - much lower than before the pandemic. Therefore, the urgent goal is to increase total social investment capital in 2025.
The key to maintaining an 8% growth rate is attracting large capital flows from private investment and foreign investment.
Associate Professor, Dr. Tran Hoang Ngan said that Ho Chi Minh City needs to quickly build a new industrial park and restructure the old industrial park to create a clean land fund at reasonable costs. Regarding synchronous infrastructure, the city must focus on transportation, social infrastructure and digitalization. Infrastructure projects such as urban railways, belt routes, etc. are being implemented systematically. If they continue to speed up progress, investment capital will increase.
Finally, regarding the investment environment and institutions, Associate Professor, Dr. Tran Hoang Ngan commented that Resolution 98 has expanded the legal corridor, but the core issue is still administrative reform. Ho Chi Minh City needs to resolutely improve the PCI (provincial competitiveness) index, PAR Index (administrative reform), PAPI (public governance and administrative efficiency) to attract investment. Currently, the city is streamlining the administrative apparatus, but the important thing is that after streamlining, the apparatus must ensure effective reform, improving the investment - business environment. Ho Chi Minh City also needs to invest heavily in the cultural industry, connecting with tourism to promote traditional growth drivers.
Having ensured an 8% growth rate, Ho Chi Minh City needs to aim for the remaining 2% growth by exploiting new projects, an important focus being the Ho Chi Minh City International Financial Center.
Dr. Nguyen Duy Phuong - Director of Strategic Investment of DG Capital - said that with a clear development strategy, specific solutions and strong determination, Ho Chi Minh City can achieve double-digit growth rate, consolidating its position as the economic locomotive of the country. The focus is that the city will implement the International Financial Center project to create a channel to attract capital for the country as well as for Ho Chi Minh City, ensuring capital needs for projects in the coming time.
To effectively perform intermediary tasks, the financial center must become a relatively complete financial transaction ecosystem, with full departments including the primary and secondary securities markets, with rich financial instruments, financial institutions and ancillary services such as banks and all types of investment funds, accounting and auditing companies, corporate credit index assessment companies, investment consulting and taxes.
According to Dr. Phuong, the current GDP capitalization rate of the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange (HoSE) is 70%, lower than Thailand (104.2%) and Malaysia (93.7%). The GDP ratio of the total market value of corporate bonds is even lower: only 22,2% in Vietnam compared to 59% in Thailand and 75% in Malaysia. Therefore, if it is built to improve the quality of the entire ecosystem in the financial center of Ho Chi Minh City according to international standards and practices, it will enhance the effectiveness of financial intermediaries, creating good conditions to attract foreign investment capital.
This is an important point because Vietnam needs to mobilize many different capital sources to invest in advanced technology, green technology and digital economy - important areas to help Vietnam develop sustainably in the future. When the Ho Chi Minh City financial center meets international standards, the number of financial transactions will increase significantly, contributing more to the current regional GDP of Ho Chi Minh City. And according to financial institutions, this figure could be around 9%.
"When this center is established and operated effectively, it can create momentum to promote growth by 2%. Next, major projects will also create added value for the city's economy" - Dr. Phuong expressed his opinion.
