Strategic Measures to Unleash Growth in Cần Thơ
The economy of Cần Thơ City has recently recorded encouraging results across several key sectors, demonstrating resilience and potential as the hub of the Mekong Delta.
However, significant and persistent bottlenecks remain that could seriously hinder the city’s ambition of achieving the Government’s challenging target of 10 per cent Gross Regional Domestic Product (GRDP) growth for 2025.
The municipal People’s Committee has recognized the urgency of the situation and has mapped out a comprehensive package of urgent measures specifically designed to eliminate these hurdles in the final, critical months of the year.
Priority is being placed on aggressively accelerating the disbursement of public investment capital, which is seen as a vital catalyst for overall economic momentum.
This acceleration involves meticulous project-by-project reviews, the assignment of clear and specific disbursement quotas to investors, and the direct resolution of delays frequently caused by cumbersome land clearance processes and administrative red tape.
The city has set an aggressive goal to achieve a disbursement rate of 68 per cent of its annual public investment plan by the end of the third quarter, a figure intended to create significant momentum that will ripple through and stimulate other economic sectors.
Simultaneously, Cần Thơ is diligently striving to boost its budget revenue streams while strictly maintaining prudent spending practices.
New revenue sources are being actively tapped, particularly from the fast-growing e-commerce sector, expanding food and beverage services, and land use fees, while recurrent expenditure is being tightly controlled to intentionally free up much-needed resources for crucial infrastructure projects and vital social welfare initiatives.
These internal financial adjustments are deemed essential to creating the fiscal space needed to power the city’s ambitious development plans.
Addressing Investment and Market Linkage Gaps
Attracting more non-budget investment, strengthening agricultural market linkages, and accelerating urban infrastructure development have been clearly identified as critical requirements for the city’s successful “sprint to the finish line.”
On the foreign trade front, the city is aggressively pushing to expand its export markets, actively supporting enterprises in their efforts to diversify products, intensify trade promotion activities, and adapt quickly to the ever-evolving new international standards and certification requirements.
Sustainable agriculture remains a high-priority agenda item for Cần Thơ, with intensified focus on the autumn-winter rice cultivation, expansion of profitable vegetable and fruit production areas, and strengthening disease control mechanisms across the farming sector.
The fisheries sector is also under closer management, specifically to combat illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing practices and ensure the long-term safeguarding of crucial marine resources.
A strong, focused push is also being made to attract high-quality foreign direct investment (FDI), with a particular emphasis on high-tech industries and advanced agro-processing facilities.
This focus is coupled with efforts to significantly lift occupancy rates within the city’s industrial zones, ensuring that available infrastructure is utilized effectively.
Efforts are concurrently under way to comprehensively review existing planning schemes and fundamentally enhance the business climate, all aimed at laying a solid foundation for sustained enterprise development.
The data reflects this dual challenge and opportunity: while trade and services have expanded strongly, with total retail sales up 18.5 per cent to over VNĐ231 trillion (US$9.05 billion) and exports rising 12 per cent to over $3.6 billion, the city struggles with a significant lack of new FDI projects, revealing a critical gap in capital attraction that must be closed to achieve the target.
Public Investment as the Engine of Future Development
The stark figures related to public investment underscore the severity of the bottlenecks currently impeding Cần Thơ’s progress and its ability to function effectively as a regional hub.
The city was allocated a substantial public investment capital of more than VNĐ27.5 trillion, or approximately $1.07 billion, for 2025; however, by the end of August, the actual disbursement reached only VNĐ7.6 trillion, falling short of 28 per cent of the annual plan.
This low disbursement rate, far below the required pace, is a major roadblock, and without drastic and immediate action, many key infrastructure projects—vital for linking the city with the rest of the Mekong Delta and beyond—could face further delays, severely undermining the city’s efforts to attract both domestic and foreign investors who rely on timely infrastructure delivery.
The lack of new foreign direct investment projects is another persistent weakness, with no new FDI projects licensed and no additional projects recorded in the city’s industrial zones during the first eight months of the year, despite the existing 121 active FDI projects with a total registered capital of nearly $4 billion.
The pace of expansion and new capital inflows remains modest compared with the strategic potential of Cần Thơ and its crucial role as the region’s economic driver.
Achieving the ambitious 10 per cent growth target is dependent on clearing these bottlenecks in public investment and non-budget investment attraction, as well as addressing immediate urban challenges such as flooding, traffic congestion, environmental pollution, and riverbank erosion.
The determination of Cần Thơ to clear these hurdles, combined with its focus on social security, administrative reform, and anti-corruption measures, signals a clear commitment to stability and is necessary to create a solid springboard for the 2026–2030 period.
