A view of HCM City. HCM City plans to achieve a GRDP growth rate of 8 per cent next year. — VNA/VNS Photo Trang Duong

HCM CITY (Biz Hub) — HCM City plans to achieve a Gross Regional Domestic Product (GRDP) growth rate of 8 per cent next year.

This is one of the city's targets set at the second session of its 10th Party Congress held early this week.

The city also aims to be ranked in the top five in the Viet Nam Provincial Governance and Public Administration Performance Index (PAPI), the Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI) and the Public Administrative Reform Index (PAR -Index).

It also plans to implement regional linkages in an aim to make the city the southern region's financial, commercial and scientific-technology centre.

Speaking at the congress, Vo Van Thuong, deputy Secretary of the city's Party Committee, said the city wanted to improve the "quality of growth and competitive capacity".

This year the city' economy has had the highest growth of the past three years, he said.

The city's exports, excluding crude oil exports, are estimated to reach US$26.6 billion this year, up 9.9 per cent against 2013.

However, the city still faces challenges, including low labour productivity and competitiveness.

Enterprises, especially small- and medium-sized enterprises, have faced many problems and the quality of human resources has not met development demands.

Solutions applied to serious issues such as traffic congestion, flooding, pollution and social security have not achieved high results.

The city plans to focus on four "breakthrough" urban programmes: reducing traffic jams; reducing flooding and responding to climate change and rising levels of sea water; reducing environmental pollution; and beautifying and developing urban areas, according to the city's People's Committee.

The city also aims to solve flooding in the city centre and prevent any further flooding spots from occurring next year.

Twenty-six major roads and bridges, including Pham Van Dong Road and Rach Chieu Bridge, will also be put in use next year.

The People's Committee also targets an unemployment rate of under 4.5 per cent in the city's urban areas and 125,000 new jobs.

In addition, the city wants the number of skilled workers to comprise at least 75 per cent of the total workforce.

In a related matter, HCM City is considered a leader in implementing the government's national New Rural Area Programme. Three of the city's five outlying districts, Cu Chi, Nha Be and Hoc Mon, have met all 19 criteria required by the New Rural Area Programme.

The remaining two outlying districts are expected to fulfil all the criteria soon, according to city officials. — VNS