Hanoi is completely able to match two Asian role models regarding several business environment criteria in the next four years, Vietnam’s Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc said at an investment conference in the capital on Sunday.

The premier said the role models were Singapore and Hong Kong, but did not elaborate on what the criteria were, as he addressed 1,500 international and domestic business people and investors at “Hanoi 2018," the city’s largest investment promotion forum of the year.

During the past few years, the PM said, Hanoi has led cities and provinces nationwide in constructing an incorruptible administration of service to residents and private entities, and creating a favorable business environment.

PM Phuc reiterated Hanoi’s plan to improve several business environment criteria to emulate Singapore and Hong Kong in the next four years.

“Is this feasible? The Hanoi chairman [Nguyen Duc Chung] has affirmed it’s possible, and in my view, Hanoi is completely able to do it,” the premier underlined.

But the premier also underscored a number of problems that may sabotage the cause of elevating the Vietnamese capital’s economic stature.

They included insufficiently steady and sustainable economic growth, traffic congestion, urban pollution, overloaded infrastructure and incompletely realized economic potential, PM Phuc elaborated.

Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc speaks at a conference in Hanoi on June 17, 2018. Photo: Tuoi Tre

The city of around ten million dwellers witnessed a consistent decline in its accountability to citizens, corruption control in the public sector, and performance in providing civil service, Phuc underlined.

He required the local government to make a breakthrough in development by dint of a clear strategy with a long-term vision.

Phuc encouraged investors to seek opportunities and select projects in which they can invest in Hanoi.

Vietnamese Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc, wearing a pink tie, shakes hands with a participant at a conference in Hanoi, June 17, 2018. Photo: Tuoi Tre

As part of the conference, the Hanoi government granted investment certificates to 71 projects, whose registered capital was collectively worth VND397 trillion (US$17.5 billion).

Amongst the recipients were Vietnam’s giants like property developers Vingroup and Tan Hoang Minh Group, and BRG Group – an investor in banking and golf courses – and Japanese conglomerates such as Hitachi and Sumitomo Group.

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