"We aim to further promote the Vietnamese-Sino cooperation in an all round way based on the principle of 'long-term stability, looking to the future, good neighborliness and comprehensive cooperation'," said Le Hoang Quan, chairman of the People's Committee of Ho Chi Minh city, in a recent exclusive interview with Xinhua.
"We have been striving to develop friendly ties with local governments in Shanghai, Chongqing, Guangzhou and China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region in the past years," he said.
China has achieved rapid growth in economic and social development, science, technology and aerospace technologies. All this showed that China's reform and opening-up policy has scored tremendous success, he noted.
Meanwhile, the Vietnamese official said, China's successful experience in reform and opening-up has played a good exemplary role in Vietnam's opening up,
Located in southern Vietnam, Ho Chi Minh city, as the country's economic, scientific and technological and financial center, is facing both challenges and opportunities, he said, as the country is now in the transition period from centralized economy to market economy.
The city, whose gross domestic product (GDP) accounts for 25 percent of the country's total, should not only promote the economic development of the whole country, but also provide experiences for the country in reform and opening up, he noted.
He said that in the past decade, the city registered an annual average double-digit economic growth rate. In the first six months of this year, the city's GDP amounted to 6.186 billion U.S. dollars, up 11.2 percent from the same period of last year, or the highest rate in the same period of the past five years.
In line with a just set social and economic development scheme, Ho Chi Minh city aims to achieve an annual growth rate at or above 11 percent between 2006 and 2015, according to the official.
To achieve the goal, Le Hoang Quan said, the city has been taking a series of effective measures, including stepping up economic structure readjustment, giving top priority to the development of the hi-tech sector, expanding exports, helping enterprises solve operation problems and preventing price monopoly.
However, he said: "the city's development will face bigger pressures as it has to pay attention to environment protection while maintaining stable economic development."
Also, he said, new problems are arising in the process of the city's integration into the world economic system, such as how to strike a balance between abiding by the commitments made when Vietnam joined the World Trade Organization early this year and maintaining national independence.
Other issues include the training of special economic personnel to cater to the need of economic development, rapid urbanization, creating jobs for increasing population, and improving people's life, he said.
Meanwhile, the city, with a registered population of 6.4 million, also has to find ways to deal with such social vices as corruption, crimes, drug addiction and prostitution that appeared in the country's reform and opening process. Statistics showed that there were 30,000 drug addicts in the city in 2002.
On the financial front, the official said, 38 foreign banks have currently set up branches or representative offices in the city. The floating capital of the banks accounted for 65 percent of the country's total.
Besides, Ho Chi Minh City is the pioneer in the country in establishing a securities exchange center. The center established in 2000 was upgraded to Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange on Aug. 9 in a bid to facilitate operations for the exchange and shorten the time for issuing documents or regulations, said Le Hoang Quan.
Although the stock exchange at present is in a small scale, with only 103 listed companies, it is a new hot spot for the city's economic growth, he said.
At the end, he said the implementation of the agreement of China-ASEAN (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations) Free Trade Area which went into operation in 2005 has played a big role in facilitating the city's economic development.
He expressed the hope that the city, as Vietnam's economic center, would create more favorable conditions for expanding economic cooperation between Vietnam and other ASEAN member countries and between Vietnam and China.
Source: Xinhua
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