HCMC sees 26% FDI boost in 8 months, but sluggish trade

Ho Chi Minh City received a total registered FDI of $390 million in Jan-Aug, up 26.2% year-on-year, but it experienced slow growth in trade and low disbursement of public investment capital, according to the municipal statistics office.

The eight-month period saw 762 new FDI projects registered, up 59.1% year-on-year, the office said in a report released Wednesday, but did not mention the combined registered capital for the new projects.

It said that between January and August, 42,005 businesses joined the market but 24,879 exited. That means, for every 10 businesses that came in, six quit.

Total retail sales in the eight-month period increased 9.6% year-on-year, the report said.

August’s consumer price index increased by 0.7% over July, and the January-August average CPI increase was 3.45%.

Vietnam’s CPI in August rose 0.88% from July, and the eight-month average CPI hike was 2.02%, according to the General Statistics Office (GSO).

But the city recorded slow growth in trade and low disbursement of public investment capital. The total export turnover of goods by city-based companies at border gates was $27.5 billion, down 16.1% year-on-year; the imports totalled $36.2 billion, down 17.3%.

HCMC Chairman Phan Van Mai said a municipal meeting Wednesday that as of August 25, the city had disbursed about VND19 trillion ($790 million) in public investment capital, just 28% of the assigned target.

Accelerating public investment disbursement has become a must, he said. “We had expected an implementation ratio of 35% by the end of June, but we continue to lag behind until this moment.”

Mai required city officials to speed up the disbursement, focusing in particular on site clearance for public-invested projects.

The deadline to announce land prices that districts have to apply must be cut down to one week from the current one month, he said.

Mai stressed that HCMC must reach an implementation ratio of 95% of the disbursement target for this year.