On May 20^th 2022, the Investment and Trade Promotion Center of Ho Chi Minh City held a meeting between Leaders of Ho Chi Minh City and Foreign Business Association in 2022. The event was attended by more than 150 people, including 22 Foreign Business Associations with more than 90 participants.

At the meeting, Chairman of Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee Phan Van Mai said that in 2021, Ho Chi Minh City will face many difficulties due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Up to now, Ho Chi Minh City has received many comments, suggestions and contributions of the foreign business community for the economic recovery and development program of the City.

Speaking at the meeting, Deputy Director of the Department of Planning and Investment of Ho Chi Minh City Tran Anh Tuan emphasized: to create favorable conditions for investors, transparency and settlement of administrative procedures, quickly, the Department of Planning and Investment will disclose information on administrative procedures as prescribed. At the same time, the Department has announced to continue implementing the commitment to reduce 30% of the time for settling investment registration procedures compared to the prescribed time. For example, the new licensing of the project has 10 days left compared to 15 days ago. He also added that in a period 2021-2025 and vision to 2030, the City has 197 projects calling for investment in 10 different areas. Since 1998, Ho Chi Minh City has had 10,588 foreign investment projects with a total capital of 53,622 billion USD. In particular, for the first 4 months of 2022, the City also granted 181 investment projects with a total capital of 186.2 million USD.

At the meeting, representatives of 06 business associations also made comments, focusing on the socio-economic development orientation of the City such as Cooperation on administrative reforms and smart city solutions, e-government; Strengthening cooperation with domestic SME producers to recover in the supply chain in Vietnam; Cooperation to facilitate the promotion of digital transformation and a cashless economy to promote post-pandemic recovery; Tourism development policies: expanding visa exemption policy,  extending the visa exemption period to 30 days to keep pace with new trends in tourism...

Concluding the meeting, Chairman of HCMC People's Committee Phan Van Mai said that before organizing this meeting, HCMC Party Committee Secretary Nguyen Van Nen reminded many times that it is necessary to organize carefully, listen seriously for the City to organize better, make the business community trust more, invest more, contribute more to the development of the City.

Chairman Phan Van Mai emphasized: "From the proposals and recommendations of foreign business associations, leaders and authorities of Ho Chi Minh City must act more to improve the business investment environment, reform administrative procedures, shorten processes, time, digital transformation to create more convenience and transparency. In the coming time, Ho Chi Minh City will cooperate with Digital Transformation Associations to accelerate the process of building digital government and digital economy”.

According to Mr. Phan Van Mai, from June 2022, Ho Chi Minh City will implement a digital platform to connect with foreign enterprises, regularly organize online meetings to provide orientation information; at the same time, note comments and problems to solve in time. Ho Chi Minh City is also urgently completing the general planning of Thu Duc City to invite investment with the goal of bringing Thu Duc City to become a new impetus to promote the development of Ho Chi Minh City.