HO CHI MINH CITY, April 2 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City secured a gross regional domestic product (GRDP) growth rate of 7.46 percent in the first quarter of this year, the municipal authorities said Sunday.
The city's GRDP stood at nearly 235 trillion Vietnamese dong (some 10.5 billion U.S. dollars) from January to March. Retail sales were 227.5 trillion Vietnamese dong (10.2 billion USD), up 12 percent against the same period last year.
In the first quarter, Ho Chi Minh City lured foreign direct investment of nearly 575 million U.S. dollars, up 56.7 percent. Meanwhile, some 8,000 enterprises with total registered capital of 99.5 trillion Vietnamese dong (nearly 4.5 billion U.S. dollars) were established in the city, posting respective year-on-year rises of 14 percent and 61.7 percent.
The city welcomed nearly 1.6 million foreign visitors between January and March, up 15 percent, and made tourism revenues of 27.8 trillion Vietnamese dong (over 1.2 billion U.S. dollars), up 15.6 percent.
Vietnam posted a GDP growth rate of 5.1 percent in the first quarter of this year, said the country's General Statistics Office.
