Ho Chi Minh City GDP
Ho Chi Minh City is one of the most important economic centers of Vietnam. It plays an important role in tourism as well as contributing greatly to the national economy. With an area of about 0,6% of Vietnam area, Ho Chi Minh City holds about 20,2% value of total national products, 27,9% value of industrial outputs and 34,9% value of foreign investment.
In 2010, the GDP per capita is about 2,800 USD/year which is higher than the country’s GPD per capita (1168 USD/year). The total GDP of Ho Chi Minh City in 2010 is 20,902 billion USD.
Comparing to the year before, Ho Chi Minh City economy has been growing at a a astounding rate of 11,8%. Particularly, agriculture’s GDP rises 6,2%, the Industrial sector’s rises about 11,7% and the service sector rises about 10,5 %. We can see that there is a noticeable discrepancy among the sectors.
The trend is the huge rising GDP in services and industrial sector while there is smaller increment in agriculture sector. This is the result of the intended process by the government called “Industrialization”. Other business Ho Chi Minh City government focuses on are processed food industries such as drinks, food, dried fruit and so on. These businesses have found a good base to thrive because Ho Chi Minh City is located near Mekong Delta, the biggest source of fruit and rice in Vietnam. Mekong Delta has suitable weather condition to plant many different kinds of fruit and many of its products are transported to HCMC for these processing industries.
The third sector of the economy which is also being invested a lot by Ho Chi Minh City government is the services industry. There have been a lot of malls and buildings being built in Ho Chi Minh City with the aim to boost the profit for services industry in this city.
Other projects such as hospitals, schools, tourism, hotels are also being developed. Ho Chi Minh City government has been making efforts to develop tourism such as making Ho Chi Minh City more friendly and cleaner to foreigners. Many changes have been implemented for foreigners to feel more comfortable on their trip to the city. All those effort has brought about the result of the rising of 10.5% in GDP for service sector.
Ho Chi Minh City still faces many difficulties and restraints from making further progress. There are not many factories with modern technology for industrial development. The city still faces many challenges in terms of transportation system, population and employment. Despite those difficulties, Ho Chi Minh City government has claimed that the GDP growth rate of 2011 is targeted at 12% and is trying their best to meet that goal.
