HCM CITY — In the first half of the year HCM City’s economy performed well, achieving growth of 7.86 per cent, up from 7.76 per cent a year earlier.
“The city has continued to speed up administrative reform, resolve difficulties faced by the business community, and encourage start-up companies,” Võ Văn Hoan, head of the People’s Committee Office, told a meeting held yesterday to review the socio-economic development in the first six months of this year.
The city’s revenues in the first six months increased by 8 per cent to VNĐ183.465 trillion (US$8 billion) and reached 48.7 per cent of the yearly plan.
Exports were worth around $18.12 billion, an increase of 7.6 per cent. Imports cost $23.7 billion, an increase of 15 per cent.
FDI got to nearly $4.18 billion, an increase of 144 per cent.
Services and retail sales grew by 12.5 per cent and industrial output by 7.11 per cent.
The city’s four key industries -- engineering and automation; electronics; chemicals, rubber, plastics; and food processing -- continued to perform strongly and grew at nearly 10 per cent.
This year some 21,500 new companies with a combined registered capital of VNĐ249 trillion ($10.9 billion) have been licensed, an increase of 107 per cent in the same period last year.
Job creation, vocational training and support for poor people have been carried out efficiently to ensure social welfare.
The number of jobs created rose marginally to 160,355 or nearly 54 per cent of yearly plan.
“This year, central government asked HCM City to collect VNĐ376.8 trillion ($16.5 billion), an increase of 8.31 per cent,” Hoan said.
“This is also the first year HCM City will carry out the special mechanism, which has been approved recently by the National Assembly, to develop,” he added. — VNS
