The Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee chairman has asked State officials to limit their overseas trips for annual leaves so that they have more time to work towards fulfilling the city’s social and economic targets set for this year. Chairman Le Hoang Quan made the statement at a meeting held on August 25 to review the city’s social and economic performance in the first eight months of 2012 and discuss tasks for the rest of the year. At the meeting, concerned agencies reported that the August CPI increased 0.66 percent, after a decline in the two previous months, and suggested that efforts need to be undertaken to prevent a return of inflation.

This month also saw export turnover increas by 3.4 percent from July, but total export earning in January-August might only rise by 1.2 percent from the same period last year. Meanwhile, the export value in January-August 2011 increased as much as 20.5 percent compared to the the same period in 2010. Total revenue from sales of goods and services in the past eight months increased by only 8.9 percent, and industrial production rose just 2.8 percent, both figures that are much lower than the growth in the same period last year. As a result, the State budget revenue declined by 0.8 percent from a year earlier and the capital disbursement for investment and development projects also met only 43.4 percent of the set plan. Nguyen Van Dung, deputy director of the State Bank of Vietnam’s HCMC Branch, reported that Asia Commercial Bank’s operation was relatively stable after Nguyen Duc Kien, former deputy chairman of the Management Board of ACB, and Ly Xuan Hai, a former ACB general director, were arrested on charges of “illegal trading” and "intentionally violating State regulations on economic management, causing serious consequences" respectively. The bank’s operations will continue to be stable in the near future, Dung assured. Chairman Quan requested that commercial banks in the city boost the disbursement of capital for the city’s key projects, especially those involving traffic infrastructure and anti-flooding measures. Considering that economic growth in many fields in the first eight months of the year was not as high as expected, he called on all relevant agencies to put in more effort so that the city can attain the economic targets it has set for the year.