The HCM City economy hasrecovered completely and is back at the point where it was before theeconomic crisis, city legislators told the opening session of thePeople's Council on Dec. 7.
Pham Phuong Thao, theCouncil chairwoman, said the city has performed its socio-economic taskscapably this year but admitted they fall short of its potential andrequirements.
She listed some major problems like environmental pollution, bad health care services, and traffic.
The city reached 17 of 22 socio-economic targets it had set for itself,only failing to achieve targets related to inflation,wastewater-treatment, water supply, export, and the number of firmspenalised from pollution.
Lawmakers agreed on an economic growth target of 12 percent for next year which will take average income to above 3,000 USD.
Deputy chairman of the People's Committee, Nguyen Thanh Tai, said thecity's economic output this year is estimated at 420 trillion VND (21billion USD), a growth of 11.5 percent.
Industry saw rapidrecovery, growing at 14 percent. The city licensed 29,654 new firmswith a cumulative registered capital of 192 trillion VND and 414 FDIprojects involving investments of 2.5 billion USD.
A further 122 FDI projects increased their investment.
Work is going on 24 infrastructure projects at a total cost of 59trillion VND (2.9 billion USD), including 46 trillion VND from ODAfunding.
However, prices have been rising and are set tocontinue rising in December due to the floods in the central region andepidemics,taking inflation for the full year to 9 percent. However, itwill decrease to below 8 percent next year, he said.
Onseveral social issues there has been progress this year: The percentageof children under five suffering from malnutrition has been reduced tobelow 7 percent and the number of hospital beds per 10,000 people hasbeen increased to 42 against a target of 40.
At thepenultimate sitting of the People's Council's seventh session, severalvital issues like the clogged roads, motorbike racing on the streets,potholes in roads, floods, and child abuse are on the agenda.
The issues will be raised at a question session tomorrow following discussions on Dec. 7 and Dec. 8.
The session wraps up on Friday./.
