HANOI, May 11 (Xinhua) -- Ho Chi Minh City, a key economic hub located in the heart of southern Vietnam, is slated to roll out a series of measures including thousands of billion dong of tax cuts to boost its economic growth and help alleviate difficult business conditions, Vietnam News reported on Thursday.
Le Duy Minh, head of the city's finance department, said measures to ease the burden on businesses could amount to 23 trillion Vietnamese dong (989.5 million U.S. dollars) in the total tax reduction this year.
Ho Chi Minh City's government tax revenues fell 3.2 percent to 170 trillion Vietnamese dong (7.3 billion dollars) in the first four months of the year from the same period a year ago, according to data from Ho Chi Minh City's Statistics Office.
The lost revenue is primarily related to declines in personal income, and business taxes from the real estate and securities investments, Minh said.
Ho Chi Minh City's gross regional domestic product in the first quarter was the lowest among five centrally-run cities as the southern economic hub recorded shrinking activities in manufacturing and construction sectors, given palpable weakness in household consumption.
The city is ready to extend efforts to support businesses and employees and release more liquidity into the economy, Phan Van Mai, chairman of the local government, said during a regular meeting to review the city's socio-economic developments in the January-April period.
The state and local authorities have set out a package of measures to shore up the economy, such as betting on domestic consumption by slashing the value-added tax, supporting the export-driven economy with central bank's policy interest rate cuts, and accelerating fund injections to expedite public investment projects.
Economists are sticking to the view that the southern economic hub would grapple with more challenges over the coming months. ■