The province’s estimated GRDP reached 61.4 trillion VND (over 2.7 billion USD)in 2016, up 7.55 percent against 2015 and 0.05 percent higher than the targetset for the year.
Per capita income reached65.3 million VND per year, up 10.5 percent year-on-year. Total investment inthe locality hit nearly 45 trillion VND (around 1.98 billion USD), surpassing theyearly target by 2 percent.
Local authorities granted investment licences to nine new projects and approvedadded capital to seven existing ones with a total value of nearly 200 millionUSD in industrial parks and export processing zones, lifting total projects inthe locality to 224, worth close to 1.6 billion USD.
Total revenue of enterprises operating in the province was estimated to reach 1.47billion USD, 2 percent higher than that of 2015. They employed 31,700 workers,an increase of 688 people against the previous year.
The trade and service sector recorded stable growth, with total retail sales and service revenues hitting over 95.6 trillion VND (4.2billion USD), representing a year-on-year rise of 9.5 percent.
However, the locality failed to realise its export goal in the year due to thetumbled shipment of its key exports such as rice and aquatic products. Thesituation impacted greatly on the city’s budget collection, which reached only8.7 trillion VND, down 1.7 percent against the last year.
A series of measures were taken to improve the quality of education and vocationaltraining, promote poverty reduction and ensure social welfare, contributing tobringing better spiritual and material lives to locals.
Attention was also paid toupgrading health care infrastructure to meet locals’ examination and treatmentdemand, while disease prevention work was intensified.
Can Tho is looking to becomean economic, education and training, health care and sci-tech centre and animportant transport intersection in the Mekong Delta region in the near future.
The city is determined to accelerate the economic restructuring in connectionwith the change of growth model this year, towards increasing the scale, efficiencyand competiveness of its economy.
In 2017, the city targets aneconomic growth of 7.8 percent and per capita income of 72.6 million VND. Itsexport turnover is expected to hit 1.67 billion USD, a year-on-year increase of7.5 percent.
Total investment in Can Tho is hoped to reach 55 trillion VND (2.42 billionUSD) in the year, up 22.6 percent compared to 2016, while State budgetcollection will exceed 11.2 trillion VND, up 14.7 percent year-on-year.
To that end, the city will implement breakthrough measures to create drasticchanges in socio-economic development, said Vo Thanh Thong, Chairman of themunicipal People’s Committee.
Efforts will be made to improve the investment climate, step up administrativereform, adapt to climate change and ensure defence, security and social order.-VNA