Ho Chi Minh city’s economy grows at 8% in 9 months

Ho Chi Minh city( apaco-vn.com)

Ho Chi Minh City’s economy grew at 8% in the first nine months of 2017, posting the highest growth since the beginning of this year.

Vietnam’s biggest city’s gross regional domestic product (GRDP) reached VND775.874 trillion (US$34.2 billion) during January-September.

The city’s three key sectors – services, industry and construction, and agriculture – continued to perform strongly, contributing greatly to the city’s economic growth.

Both services and industry and construction, which accounted for 57.2% and 25.1% of the city’s GRDP, respectively, expanded 7.7% in the first nine months. Agriculture increased 6.2% and contributed 0.7% to the city’s GRDP.

Revenues from tax on products minus subsidies accounted for 17% of total GRDP.

Ho Chi Minh Citycontinued to increase proportion of high-quality services (which have high added value and competitive advantage) in its economic structure. Nine major services include trade, finance-banking, tourism, information and communication, transportation-ports-warehouses, science and technology, real estate, education and health.

These nine segments accounted for 51.52% of the city’s GRDP, of which the real estate, trade and transportation and logistics made up the highest proportion of 27.31%.

The city’s export revenue is estimated at US$26.3 billion in January-September, up 15.7% year-on-year. Excluding crude oil, the export value was expected at US$23.96 billion, up 15% year-on-year.

Total retail sales of goods and services are estimated at over VND675.57 trillion (US$29.8 billion) in the nine month period, a rise of 10.82% compared to the same period of last year. Particularly, sales of goods increased 64.5% year-on-year, accounting for 64.5% of total sales.

New enterprises increase

More than 29,900 new enterprises with total registered capital of VND396.5 trillion (US$17.5 billion) have been licensed in the first nine months.

This represented an increase of 13% in the number of newly established businesses and 84.5% in registered capital compared to the same period of last year.

Overall, the total registered capital of new and operating companies in Ho Chi Minh City reached nearly VND615 trillion (US$27.1 billion), a year-on-year increase of 70.4%.

Real estate service and trading companies had the largest registered capital valued at VND156.6 trillion (US$6.9 billion), accounting for 39.5% of the city’s total number, up 75% year-on-year.

Auto and motorbike repair and sales companies made up 16.2% with over VND64.3 trillion (US$2.8 billion), up 66.6% year-on-year; and construction businesses registered with VND52.8 trillion (US$2.3 billion), a two-fold increase over the same period of last year.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) increased 64.3% to US$3.71 billion during the period. In September, automation and manufacturing attracted the biggest proportion of FDI of 51% valued at US$471 million.

The city focused on attracting investment in the high-tech sector and providing human resource training.

Source: Vietrade