City Chairman urges businesses to move beyond feedback for sustainable growth

At the 2026-2031 Congress of the HCMC Business Association, HCMC People's Committee Chairman Nguyen Van Duoc urged businesses to shift beyond mere feedback and take on shared responsibility for sustainable growth. The city's leader called for businesses to join in shaping and implementing policies, enhancing corporate linkages, and prioritizing digital and green transformations.

The HCMC Business Association's annual congress, held on August 27, approved the renaming of the association to the HCMC Business Federation, reflecting a broader scale, enhanced representative role, and increased connectivity within the business community. The congress also elected a 93-member Executive Committee for the 2026-2031 term, with Mai Huu Tin appointed as the new Chairman of the HCMC Business Federation.

Chairman Nguyen Van Duoc highlighted the pressing challenges businesses currently face, such as significant business dissolutions (7,483 completed in the first seven months), temporary suspensions (31,321), and mounting pressures in market access, capital expenses, and competition. He emphasized that neither the public nor private sector can afford complacency in these challenging times.

In response to these hurdles, Chairman Nguyen Van Duoc outlined four strategic directives for the HCMC Business Federation. These directives aim to foster deeper integration between the municipal government and the local business community. Firstly, enterprises must transition from traditional policy feedback to an active role in co-shaping and implementing regulations. This ensures that grassroots production and commercial expertise directly inform institutional development.

Secondly, strengthening corporate linkages is crucial to transforming the city's expanded economic landscape into a functional value multiplier. The city encourages businesses to integrate structural cooperation into their strategies.

Thirdly, adopting digital and green transformations as core competitive capabilities is emphasized. These technologies should not be viewed as secondary initiatives but as essential drivers of growth.

Finally, the directive calls for businesses to partner directly with municipal authorities in building a rapidly growing, sustainable, and socially compassionate Ho Chi Minh City. By accepting these responsibilities, Chairman Mai Huu Tin of the HCMC Business Federation expressed confidence that the new Executive Committee would translate these directives into concrete action.

Chairman Mai Huu Tin stressed that with nearly 300,000 businesses operating in Ho Chi Minh City, collective improvement in productivity, management, and technology investment can significantly strengthen individual businesses and enhance the competitiveness of the city's entire economy. The measure of entrepreneurial success is not solely based on profits but also on creating jobs, improving workers' living standards, generating knowledge and productivity, and developing Vietnamese products competitive on the global stage.