This is a part of the city’s plan on promoting exports this year, which was approved by vice chairman of Ha Noi People’s Committee Nguyen Doan Toan on April 16.

To achieve this target, Ha Noi continues to focus on administrative reforms, applying information technology in handling administrative procedures, formulating mechanisms and policies to boost production and exports, and implementing the monetary policy under the direction of the Government and central agencies in the locality.

In terms of administrative reforms, the city People’s Committee has assigned the Ha Noi Taxation Department to coordinate with relevant units in applying information technology in all steps in tax administration to facilitate and ensure transparency and fairness as well as reduce costs for enterprises.

As regards the implementation of mechanisms and policies to promote production and exports, the committee has assigned State Bank of Viet Nam’s Ha Noi branch to actively seek ways to provide more loans to production and export business while improving the quality of the credits.

Besides this, the city is also accelerating the programme to connect banks with enterprises and supply credit with reasonable interest rates.

The People’s Committee has also requested Ha Noi’s Department of Industry and Trade, Department of Taxation, and Industrial and Export Processing Zones Authority to organise training programmes for enterprises on foreign markets, free trade agreements as well as new legal policies related to import-export businesses.

By the end of the first quarter of 2018, the industrial production index of Ha Noi rose 8.5 per cent, a year-on-year increase of 3.4 percentage points. Total retail sales of goods and services are estimated at VND617.49 trillion ($27.08 billion), up 12.4 per cent over the same period last year.

The number of international visitors to Ha Noi reached nearly 1.14 million and the export turnover reached $155 million, up 16.9 per cent against the same period last year.