Towards the Southern export service center

Ho Chi Minh City's exports of goods through Cat Lai port are increasing day by day. Photo: T.H

A bright spot of commodity export

Mr. Kim Huat Ooi, IPV General Director, said that in the first three months of 2021, the total export value of the Intel factory was 2.6 billion products and it was likely that the factory would reach the milestone of 3 billion products at the end of 2021.

In 2020 alone, despite being affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, the factory's export value still reached over US$13 billion, accounting for about 70% of the export value of Ho Chi Minh City Hi-Tech Park and nearly 30% of the total export value of HCMC.

Among the eight solutions to improve exports, HCMC is particularly interested in solutions to improve the technical level of the mechanical engineering industry, creating a platform for shifting to industries with higher levels of sophistication and diversification opportunities; improve the export capacity of software products and services, digital content, finance and tourism; complete the city's strategy for developing the cluster of logistics industries; continue to promote administrative reform towards transparency and shorten the process to reduce costs as other countries in the region; implement solutions to continue to cut 50% of the time of receiving and checking customs dossiers; 50% reduction in actual inspection time of goods.

Many enterprises in the High-Tech Park in Ho Chi Minh City are also a bright spot in exports in the first three months of 2021 and the whole of 2020.

In 2020, exports of enterprises in the High-Tech Park grew strongly, reaching nearly US$20 billion, up 20% over the previous year, accounting for nearly half of the city's export turnover. In which, many enterprises with high export value such as Samsung, Intel, Jabil were estimated to increase by 20-30%.

The highlight of Ho Chi Minh City in recent years is that the business investment environment continues to be improved, administrative procedures have many breakthroughs, with many modernization programs, reducing documents and papers which has created favourable conditions for production and export activities of investors and enterprises.

According to Mr. Nguyen Thanh Phong, Chairman of the People's Committee of Ho Chi Minh City, in 2020, despite difficulties due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, the socio-economic situation still had some bright spots, especially exports reaching more than US$44 billion, attracting foreign investment to reach more than US$4 billion.

In the first quarter of 2021, the Covid-19 pandemic still had a great impact on export partner countries, but the export of city’s enterprises across the country's border gates still achieved a turnover of US$10.73 billion, up slightly 2.2% over the same period last year.

It is noteworthy that HCMC still strives to maintain export stability in some key markets. In which, China is still the largest export market for city’s enterprises, accounting for 25.6% of the export proportion. Followed by the US, accounting for over 17%; Hong Kong market accounts for 12.3% of export proportion.

Aiming to export software over US$10 billion

Determining the export of software products and digital content is one of the potentialities of Ho Chi Minh City, Ho Chi Minh City leaders have encouraged and facilitated enterprises and investors to expand production.

Recently, Intel Corporation announced an additional investment of US$475 million in Vietnam Intel Products, bringing Intel's total investment in Vietnam to US$1.5 billion. This additional investment enhances production of Intel's 5G products, Intel Core processors with Intel Hybrid Technology and 10th generation Intel Core processors. This investment enabled Intel Vietnam to promote diversification and improving operations in the host country so that more complex technologies and new products can be adopted.

Ho Chi Minh City forecasted that by 2025, the export turnover was estimated at US$70 billion and the average export growth rate in the period 2026 - 2030 would reach 9% per year. For the group of software and digital content products, it was estimated that the export turnover would reach US$10.1 billion by 2025 and US$20.3 billion by 2030.

Ho Chi Minh City also set a mission by 2025 to maintain and support the development of traditional key products with high export turnover and growth rates, creating more jobs and making a large contribution to the city’s budget, while preparing conditions for industrial upgrading, joining the global value chain, towards implementing export services were a leading strategy to increase added value in accordance with HCMC's competitive advantage.

At the same time, to improve the competitiveness of export industry clusters, gradually shifting from labour-intensive industries with low sophistication and low diversification opportunities to industries with higher sophistication and diversification opportunities (electronics, mechanics, furniture), these industries were considered as the foundation for the city's export growth in the future.

Ho Chi Minh City also set a mission by 2030 to develop a strategy to improve the competitiveness of typical export products including: tangible products (electronics, assembly mechanics, manufacturing, automation, optical sector), especially software products and digital content and service exports (finance, tourism, logistics), because these were the new drivers of long-term export growth.

HCMC also promoted investment attraction and development of service export sectors (finance, banking, logistics); to build and form logistics service centers in the city to connect and serve goods circulation in the southern region.