HCM City (VNA) - Southern provinces and cities willstrive to achieve total retail sales and services revenue of more than 2.07quadrillion VND (91.4 billion USD) in 2017, a year-on-year increase of 11.5 percent,and total export revenue of 104.9 billion USD, up 11.6 percent over last year,officials have said.

Speaking at a recent meeting of the industry and trade sector ofsouthern cities and provinces in Ho Chi Minh City, Le Thanh Liem, Vice Chairmanof the HCM City People’s Committee, said 20 provinces and cities in the southaccounted for more than 60 percent of industrial production value and 57 percentof retail sales and services revenue of the whole country.

In the past years, the industry and trade sector in the south hasrelentlessly enhanced co-operation and links through many practical programmes.

In the context of increasing integration and competition, linksand co-operation between localities to make the most of regional advantages isimportant, he said.

Therefore, provinces and cities in the south will continue to havesolutions to effectively implement strategic co-operation and links to maintainthe position of the region, he said.

Agreeing with Liem, leaders of the Departments of Industry andTrade of other cities and provinces in the south said that the links betweenlocalities should be strengthened to support regional planning, promote goodscirculation, improve product quality as well as ensure outlets for theirproducts, and inspect and manage the market and food sources better.

In addition, links would help with market demand forecasting sotraders and farmers can come up with suitable production and business plans andincrease their competitive capacity.

To realise the targets set for this year, departments of industryand trade in the region will co-ordinate with relevant agencies to continuecarrying out measures to ensure a stable supply of goods and prevent pricesfrom sudden increases, delegates said.   

In addition, localities in the south will also continue to developtheir distribution systems in accordance with regional planning to promote thecirculation of goods and balance supply and demand, contributing to thedevelopment of the trade sector, they added.

A report at the meeting showed that total retail sales andservices revenue of southern provinces and cities during the first six monthsof the year reached 1.2 quadrillion VND, an increase of 8.9 percent over thesame period last year.

Of this amount, Binh Duong, Dong Nai and HCM City achieved thehighest growth rates in retail sales and services revenue, going up by 20 percent,11.45 percent and 10.2 percent, respectively.

At the meeting, Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Do Thang Haihighly appreciated the achievements made by the south’s industry and tradesector, saying that many countries, including Vietnam’s key export markets,will continue to apply technical barriers and protective measures, causingdifficulties for local businesses.

Therefore, the industry and trade sector in southern provinces andcities needs to strengthen links to develop supporting industries, createlinks in production, distribution and oversight to ensure product quality meetsdomestic and export market demand, he said.-VNA