Ho Chi Minh City Aims to Become More Investor-Friendly

Ho Chi Minh City Aims to Become More Investor-Friendly

Though already a stable investment environment as it is, ${bigcity_Ho_Chi_Minh_City:”Ho Chi Minh City”} is to be made even more investor-friendly to attract more businesses and tourists into the city. Last April 26, a seminar was held on ways and solutions to further improve the city’s investment environment. It was attended by 250 representatives from municipal departments and agencies, including local and foreign-invested associations. An important part of the gathering was pointing out Ho Chi Minh City’s weaknesses in attracting investors and looking for concrete plans to encourage more companies to put up their businesses into the city.

Nguyen Trung Tin, Vice Chairman of the municipal People’s Committee, stressed out the importance and contribution of domestic and foreign investment into the socio-economic development of Ho Chi Minh City. But to further improve the city’s investment sector, specific corrective measures have to be imposed.

Among the proposed plans discussed during the seminar was to correct certain points in the administration, specifically the bureaucratic administrative procedures of the city, inadequate infrastructure and weak human resources. These are considered barriers from prospective investors to invest in the city.

Ho Chi Minh City aims to attract investors in nine specific areas of its business sector, namely the finance-credit-insurance; trade; transport, port services and import-export; post-telecommunication and information-technology-communication; real estate; consultancy services, science and technology; tourism; health; and education and training.

From 1988 to 2010, Ho Chi Minh City was able to entice 3,857 foreign-invested projects to set up office into the city. This was equivalent to more than $29.4 billion of combined investment capital and made up 20% of the country’s total FDI. 2011 just started but Ho Chi Minh City already has a total of around $1.33 billion worth of investment to enter the city. This is an impressive 2.5 times higher rate than last year.