Necessary to identify HCMC financial center as a national issue

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What differences are there in building Ho Chi Minh City into a regional and international financial center between now and nearly 20 years ago?

The goal of the Government is to form a financial center in the southern region with the function of transferring capital, developing banking and financial services and especially connecting with the region's financial activities. Therefore, since 2002, the Politburo Resolution 20 has oriented to build Ho Chi Minh City as the financial center of the whole country and towards the financial center of ASEAN region.

However, until now, all the ideas of building Ho Chi Minh City into a financial center are still unfinished, even the role has been reduced in respect of the size of the financial market in the whole country. For example, the total mobilized capital through financial and credit institutions in Ho Chi Minh City compared to the whole country has decreased from about 40% in the early 2000s to about 24% in 2018 and behind Hanoi with 34%.

The question is whether HCMC still plays a leading role in developing our financial market and affirms its position to the region in the long term. It seems that the idea of building Ho Chi Minh City Financial Center in line with the Politburo's orientation until 2020 is mentioned less frequently in recent years and it is fuzzier in terms of policy when the Government decided to merge two security transaction centers of Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi into Vietnam Stock Exchange, located in Hanoi.

What do you suggest HCMC leaders do to implement this goal successfully?

Ho Chi Minh City needs to make clear that the policy of Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee on developing the Project "Developing Ho Chi Minh City into an international financial center" is the continuation of the previous work which us interrupted in new conditions or raising the role of Ho Chi Minh City with a new vision in the current international context. This issue needs to be clarified to prove the feasibility of the project.

In order to develop Ho Chi Minh City into a regional financial center, in my opinion, it is necessary to identify this as a national issue, not a local issue. If based on the law regulating the operation of the financial market, the local government only plays a supporting role and facilitates the development on the basis of implementing the Government's policy on building an international financial center in any form and any model.

According to the policy of the government, Ho Chi Minh City plays a role and support functions in the scale of a city, but in terms of policies and development viewpoints, there must be guidelines of the Government.

Previously, in 2007, in the project of developing Vietnam’s financial market, the Government also advocated building Ho Chi Minh City into a financial center. But from the policy to the project is still a long distance.

In order to do this, Ho Chi Minh City needs to build a feasible project, and it has a roadmap to reaffirm its role as a national financial center, then proceed to exchange to form its position compared to regional financial centers and select models to align with the development and opening process of Vietnam's financial market to the world to gradually assert a certain position.

To achieve the long-term goal of reaching the international market, first of all, Ho Chi Minh City must confirm the position of the national financial center and then head to the region. But all these steps depend on whether Ho Chi Minh City is an economic center, the role of an economic center and economic exchange is important.

A corner of HCMC. Photo: collected A corner of HCMC. Photo: collected

Has the role of the economic center of Ho Chi Minh City in recent years slowed compared to other localities in the country?

Compared to other localities, in recent years, HCMC has been slowing down, because other localities grow faster. However, what HCMC needs to consider is that the city's development has many shortcomings. For example, infrastructure, connectivity, high quality human resources, economic restructuring. Therefore, HCMC needs to show the superiority of institutions, human resources and infrastructure.

In the past, Ho Chi Minh City was the settlement place of the residents of the provinces and cities, now it must be the start-up place of businesses. At present, the Government is placing the requirement of national competitiveness at ASEAN level 4, so that HCMC must be at the forefront of this issue to become a center.

The National Assembly has given Ho Chi Minh City a unique mechanism and has been implementing it for a year now, how do you rate it?

The unique mechanism of HCMC is available, but it is not enough, it needs to be stronger in decentralization, especially the supervision decentralization. But the current mechanism is not enough and it has not created a driving force for the city yet.

Thank you, Sir!