Accordingly, Deputy Chairman of the People’s Committee of HCMC Vo Van Hoan, Head of the Propaganda Department of Ho Chi Minh City Party Committee Phan Nguyen Nhu Khue and the senior leaders attended in the journey.
The HCMC People's Committee held a roundtable conference between the municipal government and a large number of Singapore businesses on Wednesday morning.
At the conference, the Singaporean businesses briefly introduced about activities in the fields of construction and manufacturing, foodstuff, retail, planning and infrastructure investment, finance, education, especially vocational education. They appraised Ho Chi Minh City as an attractive business destination for the investors.
Expressing desires to invest into the market, the Singaporean businesses made specific questions such as the policy for Singaporean businesses to open duty-free stores at shopping malls, HCMC's policy on real estate supply and demand.
Besides that, the Singaporean businesses also expressed much interest in openness and obviousness in administrative procedures and investment license.
Deputy Chairman of the city People's Committee Vo Van Hoan and leaders of relevant departments and agencies specifically gave answers related to these questions.
According to him, HCMC is going to continue to promote the innovation mechanisms on creativity and using resources more effectively, especially creating favorable conditions for foreign businesses, including Singaporean businesses to learn about investment opportunities, long-term and effective business in Ho Chi Minh City.
City Party Chief Nguyen Thien Nhan expressed his pleasure at these questions from Singaporean businesses and hoped that the answers would contribute to strengthening their confidence and business decision in Ho Chi Minh City.
The leader also pledged political stability for Singaporean investors as well as other countries to invest in Ho Chi Minh City in particular and Vietnam in general; introduced the city’s development orientations in the forthcoming time, especially building Ho Chi Minh City into a smart city.
As this reason, Secretary Nhan hoped that the Singaporean businesses would strengthen their investment in the city.
In the chain of events calling Singaporean enterprises to invest into Ho Chi Minh City, the city leaders had some meetings with the country’s enterprises.
In particular, at the meetings Mr. Teo Eng Cheo, CEO International of Surbana Jurong Group suggested to be shared about information of transport infrastructure projects in Ho Chi Minh City and projects connecting to the city such as Metro Line No.1, Metro Line No.2 , Cai Lai Bridge, Long Thanh railway project (Dong Nai province) connecting to Ho Chi Minh City.
In responding to the suggestion, Deputy Chairman of the Municipal People’s Committee Vo Van Hoa welcomed the Surbana Jurong Group’s intention of learning and tendering the city’s infrastructure projects.
Regarding the railway project connecting Dong Nai province to Ho Chi Minh City under the Ministry of Transport, the city guaranteed to support the enterprise to join the project.
After that, the delegation had a meeting with Grab Holdings Inc. (Grab) and Sovico Group (Vietnam).
Secretary Nguyen Thien Nhan and the high-ranking delegation also witnessed singing a cooperation agreement between the two enterprises to establish the comprehensive strategic partnership.
Under the agreement, the two groups will cooperate in the areas of mobile technology solutions and logistics, contributing to the completion of the freight forwarding network from the beginning to the end of Vietnam and Southeast Asia region.
Mr. Russell Cohen, Head of Regional Operations of Grab throughout the Southeast Asia announced to invest an additional US$ 500 million in Vietnam over the next five years to develop financial technology solutions, new mobile technologies and logistics with the goal of contributing positively to the development of Vietnam's digital economy, including Ho Chi Minh City.
Vietnamese Ambassador to Singapore Tao Thi Thanh Huong accompanied the delegation in the working visit.
This visit aims to push up economy and investment cooperation of the Ministry for Trade and Industry as an agency in charge of Enterprise Singapore, Singapore Business Federation, etc, attracting investment from Singapore as well as exchanging experiences on Singapore’s adaption in the context of the world economy with trade conflicts, investment shift, etc.
