PM supports increased budget retention for HCMC

The southern metropolis is considered Vietnam's economic powerhouse, evident in its GDP contribution to the national budget and its population scale, Chinh said.

Besides the higher budget retention, the municipality should develop its new Thu Duc City into a development engine with a focus on the digital economy, aiming at contributing 25 percent of the national GDP, the PM added.

In a proposal sent earlier to the prime minister regarding HCMC's budget retention rate for the 2022-2025 period, the chairman of the municipal People's Committee, Nguyen Thanh Long, had said that HCMC, despite contributing 27 percent to the national budget, had the lowest retention rate in the country. The ration having been reduced from 23 to 18 percent for the 2017-2021 five-year period.

The city has held several meetings to discuss the change, and concluded that the 23 percent budget retention rate for the 2011-2016 period was more appropriate for its development needs. Therefore, Long proposed to the government that it approves a 23 percent budget retention rate this year so the city could has enough resources to develop quickly and sustainably.

HCMC has been the country's largest money-maker for decades and has always been assigned the highest state budget collection target.

In the first four months of 2021, the southern metropolis posted a budget collection of VND140 trillion ($6 billion), up 15.7 percent from the same period last year, the city People's Committee said Tuesday.