HCM City to effectively utilise remittance for development

A conference was held on October 11 to launch the project “Effective policies to make use of remittance in HCM City until 2030” with the city’s agencies and overseas Vietnamese.

According to the HCM City Committee for Overseas Vietnamese, HCM City recognises remittance as an important resource that plays a big role in the city’s socio-economic development, so there have been many policies to encourage overseas Vietnamese to send money back to the country, such as no income tax on foreign currency remittances from overseas Vietnamese.

A conference was held in HCM City on October 11 to launch the project “Effective policies to make use of remittance in HCM City until 2030” with the participation of many overseas Vietnamese. — Photo nld.com.vn

The committee said that it has worked with relevant agencies and organisations to research and build the project, including with the HCM City People’s Committee, the State Bank of Việt Nam's branch in HCM City, the city’s departments, Việt Nam’s embassies in countries with high amounta of remittance to Việt Nam, overseas Vietnamese businessmen, experts and others.

This is to create policies that better attract remittance into the city’s production activities.

HCM City officially approved the project on September 26, and assigned tasks to departments and localities to carry out the project.

The HCM City Committee for Overseas Vietnamese will preside over the implementation of the project, and it has to advise the city on solutions to direct the usage of remittance to serve its socio-economic development, such as into development projects for culture, education or health; real estate; bonds; production activities; and others.

It will also launch a database of overseas Vietnamese who can help strengthen HCM City’s exports to other countries.

Meanwhile, departments and relevant agencies will propose and advise HCM City in issuing bonds to attract remittance to invest into infrastructure works, while encouraging labour exporting businesses to find new export markets for labourers, among other tasks.

Nguyễn Đức Lệnh, Deputy Director of the State Bank of Việt Nam's branch in HCM City, said that the banking sector is focusing on good policies to maintain remittance attraction into the country, ensuring a growth rate of 10 per cent every year.

It is also improving the quality of remittance payment services and consulting service for remittance receivers on how they can invest their money.

Remittance to HCM City in the first nine months of the year reached nearly US$5.5 billion. — Photo tuoitre.vn

According to the HCM City Committee for Overseas Vietnamese, the effective utilisation of remittance is a strategic mission of HCM City and an opportunity to make use of the strengths of the overseas Vietnamese community for the city’s development.

In the first nine months of 2024, remittance into HCM City reached nearly US$5.5 billion, up 10.4 per cent year-on-year.

Chargé d'affaires Nguyễn Đức Minh at the Vietnamese Embassy in Japan, where over 600,000 Vietnamese live, said that many Vietnamese in Japan pay great attention to the topic of remittance, and that the embassy will help Vietnamese people there have a better understanding of the investment opportunities that arise from this project.

Trần Bá Phúc, chairman of the Vietnamese Business Association in Australia, said that Việt Nam’s banks should work with their counterparts in Australia to facilitate remittance transfer and bilateral trade.

Representatives of Vietnamese embassies in other countries said that more and more overseas Vietnamese want to contribute to the country, so HCM City should work closely with them to provide detailed information on remittance attraction policies.