Ho Chi Minh City’s private businesses to receive $100-million boost

By Ngoc Hau August 2, 2016 | 11:41 pm PT

The southern hub has stepped up efforts to unleash the power of the local business community.

Ho Chi Minh City’s authorities expect the private sector will eventually contribute about 65 percent of the city’s gross domestic product and help raise its total productivity by 6.5 percent per year.

The city’s government has decided to allocate 70 percent of a VND3 trillion ($134 million) fund set up to boost the private sector to help companies switch to high-tech equipment and apply new technologies. The annual target is to get 30-35 percent of local businesses using innovative solutions.

The city also aims to use the remaining funds, around $45 million, to double its private companies to 500,000 by 2020.

“The target is within reach. We can reach it by sheer determination,” Dinh La Thang, chief of the city's Communist Party Unit, said.

Ho Chi Minh City currently has 250,000 household businesses. The city plans to double the figure by turning family businesses into small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), according to the city’s leader.

Vietnamese policymakers are embracing an ambitious plan to turn the country into a start-up nation in the next four years.

Recently, the Vietnamese government approved a package of fresh initiatives aimed at paving the way for the boom in technology start-ups.

The Ministry of Planning and Investment has already developed a set of incentives that will draw local and foreign venture capital funds into the country.

The goal is for Vietnam to have one million start-up companies by 2020, said Deputy Prime Minister Vuong Dinh Hue.

Ho Chi Minh City, as the driving force of the country’s economic reforms, is set to grow by 8-8.5 percent annually to become a smart and dynamic part of Asia, to become the talent hub of the country where investors and start-ups flock together, and to thrive on a sustainable market-based economy.