Ho Chi Minh City is located in a special geographical position, converging many favorable conditions for the economic development. Since olden time, the City has been a key strategic area of the South, a dense and prosperous trade center of exchange with foreigners.

Ho Chi Minh City at A Glance - 2008

• Area: 2,095 km2
• Administrative structure: 24 districts
• Population:
• Registered resident: 6.840 million
• Unregistered resident: 30%
• Non-resident:  500 thousand
• GDP:  17.55 billion USD
• GDP growth rate:  10.7% 
• GDP per capita:  2,500 USD
• Unemployment rate:   5.4%
• FDI inflow:  8.8 billion USD
• Export:  30.2 billion USD
• International visitors:  2.8 million

Goals for 2009

• Economic growth of at least 10%.
• Total revenues of VND122,327 billion (US$7.02 billion) with export revenues increasing by 16.5%.
• City Budget Expenditure totals VND21,898 billion, including VND7,222 billion or 32.98% invested in development projects.
• CPI rises by less than 15%.
• 55% of the workforce is trained, 270,000 more jobs are created and unemployment is cut to 5.3%.
• Public means of transport are used 480 million times.
• 95% of environment polluters are penalized and 100% of industrial zones and export processing zones are equipped with waste water treatment systems.

An Economic Hub of the Nation

• The 9-million-people City is the biggest economic center of Vietnam
• Center of the Southern Key Economic Zone (50% of the country’s GDP, and 60% of the country’s FDI)
• Contributing 20% of the country’s GDP
• 100,000 companies (30% of Vietnam) registered in Ho Chi Minh City.
• The best infrastructure:
• Tan Son Nhat Airport: the biggest airport of the country, connect to 20 countries, 12.5 million passengers in 2008
• Saigon Ports: the biggest port system of the country, 54.2 million tons in 2008
• 1 high tech park, 2 software parks, 3 export processing zones, and 12 industrial parks
• First stock market, 47 foreign bank branches
• 3,000 foreign representative offices from 60 countries
• 41 universities, 29 colleges and 34 professional secondary with 500,000 students

• One stop shops for investors: DPI, ITPC
• E-government:
• Business registration on line
• Dialog On-line: 42 government authorities responsible for answering any enquiry from businesses within 5 working days
• Reduction of procedures waiting time.
• Face-to-face meetings with foreign investors, business consultants and attorneys regularly and per request.

Ho Chi Minh City by 2020

• Government target: HCMC will turn into a 10-million population metropolitan characterized by hi-tech industries, high end services and scientific - technological research facilities catching up regional level
• GDP/capita US 6,000; economic structure : 60.4 % service, 39.2 % industry
• Housing demand: from 11.5 m2/person currently to 17 m2/person by 2020