VNBusinessNews – HCMC leaders have ordered agencies to do their utmost to help local companies, especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to get financial assistance quickly and easily so that they can maintain production and create employment in times of hardship.

At a meeting with the heads of departments and business executives on Thursday, HCMC chairman Le Hoang Quan told the Department of Industry and Trade to work with industry associations to assess how much capital their members would need for production.

“It is important to identity the capital demand of companies in each of the sectors,” he said, urging the industry department’s officials to go to the associations to find ways to assist them, instead of waiting for them to come for help.

Quan insisted the department report SMEs’ needs for capital to the city government on February 15 at the latest, or in less than two weeks after the State Bank of Vietnam issued a circular guiding the provision of the four percentage point interest rate support for loan contracts signed or disbursed from early February to end-December.

According to the city’s Department of Finance, the city has planned some VND178 billion (over US$10 million) to provide credit guarantees for SMEs. The city is also planning to issue municipal bonds to raise funds for major infrastructure projects and others.

HCMC vice chairperson Nguyen Thi Hong said speeding capital disbursement from different sources including the city’s budget, official development assistance (ODA) funds and bonds would support the central Government’s stimulus package to beef up the country’s economic growth.

Quan wanted a quicker pace of such major projects as Phu My Bridge and East-West Highway and urban railway development.

He also gave the green light to a VND200-billion project by the State-owned automaker Saigon Transportation Mechanical Corp. (Samco) to make 300 small-sized buses in order to help improve public transportation in the city.

Samco board chairman Do Tien Luc said the corporation would manufacture the buses as soon as it had worked with agencies over how to use the vehicles efficiently and get funds.

In addition to financial assistance, the city will lower and suspend taxes for enterprises as wanted by the Government to help them ride out troubled times, but still ensure revenues for the city’s budget this year, Quan said.

Hong said though HCMC’s tax revenue from domestic sources would fall by some VND5 trillion (more than US$286 million) because of tax reductions and breaks and would face challenges, the city was determined to realize the tax revenue target of over VND123 trillion as assigned by the Government or higher this year.

A report delivered by Truong Van Lam, office manager of the HCMC People’s Committee, at the meeting shows tax revenue in January fell 12.5% year-on-year to more than VND11 trillion (some US$630 million). The tax revenue from imports and exports was over VND3.8 trillion, down 18.2%.

The city posted January export revenue of some US$1.34 billion, including crude oil, down 6.8% from December and 20.2% from the year-earlier period.

Hong told the Department of Industry and Trade to submit the city government a detailed plan to identify the target markets including Cambodia for Vietnamese goods. Hong said Cambodia was a market of great potential.

Fresh foreign direct investment from the operational projects and the projects licensed in the year to January 20 exceeded US$16 million, down nearly 30% from the same period last year.

Vice chairperson Hong said FDI had showed signs of declining. To attract more new FDI as expected, another vice chairperson, Nguyen Trung Tin, told the Departments of Planning-Investment, and Construction to propose measures to quickly license projects and halve the time required for the licensing process.

Chairman Quan stressed the importance of simplifying administrative procedures. “Procedures should be completed in the shortest time possible as one of the measures to support production and arrest the economic slide.”

Quan said streamlined procedures for hi-tech parks and industrial zones would help attract more investment.

However, he noted investment should be prioritized for changes to the city’s economic structure, transfer of modern technologies and job generation.

HCMC attracted 330,000 international tourists in January, or the same as the year-earlier period. Hong said the city would have to welcome 3.3 million international arrivals this year if it wanted to realize the service and tourism target as assigned by the Government this year.

Toward this end, Hong told the Department of Culture, Sport and Tourism to further collaborate with local travel agencies and hotels so as to offer discount products to lure more international tourists. (SGT)