In his opening speech at the Forum, Chairman of the People's Committee of Can Tho City, Tran Viet Truong, stated: The Vietnam Economic Forum has been an annual event chaired by the Central Committee’s Economic Commission since 2017. Given the significance and effectiveness of the Forum's activities, Can Tho City places great importance on organizing its annual Economic Forum, expanding its scope to the Mekong Delta region. The Forum is a place for exchanging opinions, sharing perspectives among state management agencies, experts, scientists, and the business community to contribute to the sustainable development directions of Can Tho City.

Can Tho city is considered by many investors to have great potential due to its geographical location and increasingly improved transportation system. The central government is focusing on investing resources in developing the Mekong Delta region. Many major infrastructure projects related to transportation are being implemented, such as: the vertical highway route (Trung Luong - Can Tho - Ca Mau); the horizontal route (Chau Doc - Can Tho - Soc Trang); the complete construction project to allow large-tonnage vessels access to the Hau River in phase 2; the dredging project of the Dinh An - Can Tho maritime route; the Ho Chi Minh City - Can Tho railway project has been approved by the Prime Minister in the 2021 - 2030 railway network planning, with a vision up to 2050, expected to be invested in before 2030.

Participants attended the roundtable discussion at the Can Tho City Annual Economic Forum in 2024.

In recent years, Can Tho City has been making efforts to develop, aiming to create an attractive and stable investment environment. Over the past 4 years of implementing Resolution No. 59-NQ/TW dated August 5, 2020 of the Politburo on the construction and development of Can Tho City until 2030, with a vision towards 2045, the city has achieved encouraging results. Specifically: the total social investment capital of the city in the 2021 - 2023 period reached 71,964 billion VND, increasing by an average of about 10% per year.

The ratio of total social investment capital to GRDP is currently around 23 - 24%, contributing to improving the scale of the economy and increasing from 91,590 billion VND in 2021 to an estimated 118,491 billion VND in 2023 and 131,904 billion VND in 2024. The per capita GRDP by the end of 2024 is estimated to reach 104.16 million VND, an increase of 30.71 million VND compared to 2021. The city currently has 81 foreign direct investment (FDI) projects, with a total registered investment capital of 1.932 billion USD.

However, attracting investment to the city has not met expectations due to inadequate infrastructure such as the road system, ports, and logistics which are still not fully developed to meet the needs of large investors; complex administrative procedures, which, despite many efforts, still fail to meet business needs; and a lack of breakthrough policy mechanisms. Therefore, the city needs to identify obstacles in attracting investment in order to develop effective solutions to attract investment.

The scene at the forum.

The Can Tho City Annual Economic Forum in 2024 aims to identify bottlenecks in the investment and business environment from the perspectives of experts, businesses, and state management agencies; propose short-term and long-term solutions to address difficulties and obstacles for businesses and suggest policy mechanisms to attract investors, especially strategic investors

The forum includes main speeches and roundtable discussions with key issues to find solutions to diversify funding sources through attracting investment outside the budget, attracting FDI to develop Can Tho City quickly and sustainably.