HANOI, April 17 (Xinhua) -- Ho Chi Minh City in southern Vietnam has been urged to enhance its legal frameworks to facilitate capital flows and address obstacles in the bond and real estate markets, local media reported on Monday.
These efforts are aimed at resolving bottlenecks in the city's socioeconomic development, local newspaper Vietnam News reported.
The city has been grappling with an economic slowdown, largely resulting from administrative inefficiencies, ongoing pandemic-related consequences, and limited opportunities for new growth drivers and spatial expansion, the report said.
With a leading role in the key economic region in the south, Ho Chi Minh City should continue to support local businesses and people in production, employment, livelihoods and innovation while closely monitoring the international and local situation for prompt actions, the newspaper reported, citing Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh in a recent conference.
The Ho Chi Minh City Union of Business Associations (HUBA) has recently called on the authorities to resolve difficulties faced by businesses suffering from a sharp drop in export orders.
The biggest difficulties faced by export firms, especially in the woodwork and garment and textile industries, are a lack of export orders and cash flows and the inability to borrow from banks, the newspaper reported, citing the HUBA.
It suggested that the State Bank of Vietnam continue to roll over medium- and long-term loans, and bring down bank lending interest rates.
HUBA surveys found that 41.2 percent of respondent firms blamed their operation difficulties on a shrinking market, 17.6 percent on higher raw material prices, 11.2 percent on human resource shortage and 17.6 percent on the lack of capital. ■
