HCM City​ (VNA) - HCM City’s industry and trade sectors were amongthe leading, the city’s Department of Industry and Trade, said on November 15.

Compared with 2016, the index of industrial production (IIP) this year isexpected to increase by nearly 8.5 percent; turnover from retail goods andconsumer services by 10.9 percent; and export turnover by 15.1 percent.

Industry and trade reached added value of around 356 trillion VND (15.8 billionUSD), accounting for 33.6 percent of the city’s GRDP.

“The breakthrough growth of four key industries -- food processing,chemistry-rubber engineering, electronics and information technology -- sawsignificant achievements with IIP 1.83 times higher than that of nationalindustry,” Pham Thanh Kien, Director of the department, said.

“Infrastructure for modern trade included an additional 18 supermarkets, threeshopping malls, and 218 convenience shops compared with 2016. There wasremarkable growth of online trade, which contributed to commodity retail andconsumer service turnover,” he added.

City authorities have launched many support policies for enterprises.Enterprises in the industry and supporting sectors can now borrow capital of upto 200 billion VND (8.9 million USD) per project, with preferential-loan interestperiods lasting seven years.

This year, the city organised 35 trade promotion campaigns by connectinginternational retail groups with local producers and helping enterprises expandmarket share in neighbouring provinces and international markets.

Rapid establishment of new enterprises, with nearly 330,000 this year, anincrease of 8.45 percent, also contributed to growth.

However, most of the new enterprises were micro and small-sized companies,which have difficulty accessing preferential capital from the Government andbanks.

The supporting industry has gained initial achievements, but is not strongenough to meet material demand for local producers.

“In the coming time, the trade and industry department will promote tradefocusing on key markets with trade surpluses with Vietnam of over 1 billion USD,like China, the Republic of Korea, Singapore, Taiwan (China) and Thailand,” Kienadded.

“We will focus on policies to help supporting enterprises so they can takeadvantage of free trade agreements, and develop technical barriers to minimiseany negative impact from such agreements,” he added. 

Economists have said that HCM City must identify its export advantages andfocus all resources to promote key export industries like electronics,computers, software and digital content and services.-VNA