HCM City (VNA) - HCM City’s revenues lastyear grew by 8.6 percent to 378.54 trillion VND (16.3 billion USD), accordingto the municipal Department of Finance.
The city, which gets a portion of its revenues allocated to it by theGovernment, spent 72.63 trillion VND, up almost a fifth from the previous year,with 30.79 trillion VND being spent on socio-economic infrastructure.
Huynh Thi Thanh Hien, deputy director of the department, told a review meetingwhere the figures were tabled that despite facing many challenges such asfalling import tariffs due to free trade agreements and difficulties faced bylocal enterprises, her department and other relevant ones had managed to meetthe revenue target set by the Government, which was 17.5 percent higher than in2017.
They would try their best to accomplish the revenue targets in 2019 too, shepromised.
Her department would coordinate with others such as customs, tax and treasuryto intensify tax inspection, strictly deal with tax payment delays and evasion,and abuse of transfer pricing, she said.
It would also help businesses resolve difficulties related to tax and otherissues, she said.
Nguyen Thanh Phong, Chairman of the municipal People’s Committee, appreciatedthe efforts made by the finance department to fulfill the city’s revenuetargets.
The target for domestic collection is 272.32 trillion VND, an increase of 16.4percent, he said.
“These targets are too high. This means the city must collect 1.53 trillion VND(65.8 million USD) every day. This is a difficult task.”
Therefore, relevant departments and agencies should focus on key solutions toachieve the targets, he said.
He said the finance department should strengthen measures to ensure full andtimely collection in accordance with the law, enhance collection of land userights when selling State-owned properties, strictly control spending, andspeed up equitisation of Stated-owned companies.
Together with tax, customs and treasury agencies it should also focus onadministrative reform and improving human resources to increase transparency tofoster businesses, he suggested.
He called on it to ensure businesses scrupulously use e-invoices to prevent taxevasion and create a culture of paying taxes among household businesses.-VNA