Nguyen Thien Nhan, Politburo member and Secretary of the city Party Committee, speaks at the meeting. (Photo: hcmcpv.org.vn)

Addressing the meeting, Le Thanh Liem, Standing Deputy Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh city People’s Committee, said that the second phase of the emulation movement took place when COVID-19 was reported less seriously in the city, with a reduction in the number of community infections and no fatalities. 

“The city continued to focus on both minimizing the influence of the pandemic and carrying out emulation activities to obtain socio-economic development efficiency,” he said. 

According to Mr. Liem, in economic, cultural and social areas, the gross regional domestic product (GRDP) was estimated to increase by 2% over the same period last year; the total state budget revenue estimated at over VND163.2 trillion; foreign investment capital attraction estimated at USD2.01 billion; total export turnover estimated at USD20.7 billion, up 5.8% over the same period last year; and the total retail sales of goods and service revenue were estimated at over VND614.5 trillion, a year-on-year reduction of 3.7%. 

In the first 6 months of the year, the city created jobs for 145,787 labourers and 66,519 new jobs were created.

Regarding the fight against COVID-19, Mr. Liem said that although the city only reported imported cases after April 30, it maintained and strengthened dissemination on the pandemic to change and inspect residents’ behaviours to promptly detect any possible cases; inspect illegal entrance; and reinforce prevention teams to be ready to cope with new outbreaks.

He also informed that 123 of 159 registered constructions had been completed in progress, accounting for 77.36%. 

The city has fully carried out the project on building the city into a smart city, through which it deployed the shared data warehouse and open data ecosystem, putting a smart urban operations center into operation, establishing the Center for Socio-Economic Simulation and Forecasting, and implementing the smart urban project in 24 districts.

In addition, the city has registered to promote the implementation of the urban railway project No. 1 (Ben Thanh - Suoi Tien) to be inaugurated by 2021 and the urban railway project No. 2 (Ben Thanh - Tham Luong) to start construction in October 2020; promote and support the first phase of the project to address flooding caused by tides in consideration of climate change be completed in progress in December; publicize the planning of a creative high-interactive urban area in the East of the city; and implement project bidding and land auction for about 5 projects in Thu Thiem new urban area.

Speaking at the meeting, Nguyen Thien Nhan, Politburo member and Secretary of the city Party Committee, praised the efforts of each commune and district in working with the residents, businesses and scientists to both maintain city development and fight the second wave of COVID-19. “The results gained are practical,” he said./.

Compiled by BTA