HCM City (VNA) - The Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee has urgedall districts to conduct programmes on smart city development, with specifictargets, roadmaps and implementation measures suited to the characteristics ofindividual locality.

In the first phase of its smart city development, the city selected districts 1and 12 to pilot the project, and there have been some accomplishments aftermore than two years, Chairman of the committee Nguyen Thanh Phong said.

They include application of cutting-edge technologies in administration, andare a crucial foundation for scaling up the project to the remaining 22districts, he told a recent meeting.

A council would be set up to study the results of the project in the twodistricts to ensure effective implementation in other districts, he said.

The 22 districts need to submit their programmes on smart urban development forapproval by next month, he said.

“Each district must exert all efforts to push up smart city initiatives to helpthe administration operate effectively and enhance people’s quality of life.”

Nguyen Van Dung, Chairman of the People’s Committee of District 1, said hisdistrict has built a model intelligent operation centre that integrates eightsystems: smart security camera system, smart firefighting system, smart urbanadministration, smart healthcare, smart education, smart tourism, online publicservices, and information security operations.

It also carried out digital transformation and interconnected information withthe city management databases, he said.

For online public services, District 1 has already adopted a non-paperregistration process in various sectors such as economy, labour, internalaffairs and education, he said.

Online registrations rose by four times last year, he said.

As part of the city’s smart city development project, District 12 has adoptedgeographic information system (GIS) solutions for urban planning andenvironmental resource management, Le Truong Hai Hieu, Chairman of its People’sCommittee, said.

It helps monitor land usage and detect illegal construction, he said.

The district has improved administrative operations using administrativedocument management software, which allows the public to monitor administrativeprocedures in real time, he said.

It has also adopted online public services in various sectors, he added.

Vo Thi Trung Trinh, deputy director of the city Information and CommunicationsDepartment, said “Districts need to build coordinated data systems and connecttheir information with the city database.”

Smart city development programmes in districts need to provide convenientpublic services to individuals and businesses and enhance the quality of publicservices, she said.

Ho Chi Minh City is the largest city in Vietnam and the economic hub of the southern region. Accounting for 0.6 percent of Vietnam’s total land area and about 9 percent of the country’s population, it is part of the southern key economic zone, which also comprises Dong Nai, Ba Ria - Vung Tau, Binh Duong, Long An, Tay Ninh and Binh Phuoc provinces. In the southern economic hub, over 3,000 projects across all sectors are supported by foreign capital, while the number of registered enterprises has exceeded 100,000.

In 2019, the city attracted 8.3 billion USD worth of foreign investment, with its labour productivity being nearly three times that of the whole country (299.8 million VND per person, an increase of 6.8 percent over 2018).

Meanwhile, the total number of international visitors to the city reached 8.5 million, a year-on-year increase of 14 percent with revenues up by 14.5 percent over 2018

The local gross regional domestic product (GRDP) reached more than 1.34 quadrillion VND, an 8.32 percent increase year-on-year.

Before the outbreak of COVID-19, the city set a target of achieving a growth rate of 8.5 percent for GRDP in 2020, with total private investment accounting for 35 percent of GRDP.

This year, HCM City also aims to have 44,000 new businesses, creating 135,000 new jobs./.