HCMC Still Stuck in the Mud
What will it take to unleash the city?
Good morning! Welcome to the latest edition of the Vietnam Weekly, written by Ho Chi Minh City-based reporter Mike Tatarski. Today’s newsletter is exclusively for paying subscribers, while the Friday edition is always free to read.
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No preamble today as this is a lengthy post.
Since March 2023, I’ve published an irregular series of articles on Ho Chi Minh City’s economic and financial ills while focusing on the municipal government’s inability to effectively spend its public budget.
This isn’t money that officials have to find - it’s allocated by the national government at the start of each year and is theoretically sitting there waiting to be used.
The first piece was titled ‘Ho Chi Minh City's Confounding Paralysis,’ followed by ‘Is Ho Chi Minh City in Decline?’ last May, ‘The Struggle to Build Continues’ in July, and ‘Picturing HCMC's Future’ in October.
That last article was written after the passage of Resolution 98, the latest policy intended to shake off the city’s development inertia.
At that time, Secretary of the HCMC Party Committee Nguyễn Văn Nên likened Resolution 98 to a ship, with local media quoting him saying: “Now all the work is ready, the ship is fully loaded and ready to speed up.”
So, has the ship sped up?