HCM City projected to experience 4-5% budget collection shortfall
In 2023, HCM City has been assigned to collect over 469.37 trillion VND for the state budget. (Illustrative photo - Source: VNA)

In 2023, HCM City has been assigned to collect over 469.37 trillion VND (19.08 billion USD) for the state budget.

According to the municipal Statistics Office, the city’s collected volume amounted to about 372.7 trillion VND in the first ten months, meeting 79.4% of the plan and dropping by 8.1% year-on-year. The budget collection from the domestic, crude oil, and import-export revenues all experienced reductions compared to the same period last year.

Director of the municipal Department of Finance Le Duy Minh said it will be very difficult to complete the remaining 20% of this year's target within the next two months. The financial sector predicted that the budget collection may suffer a shortfall of 4-5% of the estimate, equivalent more than 23 trillion VND, with the majority coming from the customs sector’s import-export revenue shortfall of about 20 trillion VND.

According to Minh, although the situation has improved recently, all taxed import and export sectors have undergone significant annual decreases. Among them, the key items dragging down the state budget revenue collection included petroleum products, computers, electronic products and components, iron, and steel.

Currently, the city owns relatively large tax arrears, exceeding 40 trillion VND, of which nearly 2 trillion VND is related to customs. Therefore, reducing the outstanding arrears and increasing revenue are necessary for collection work to reach its highest possible volume this year./.