Hue City overcomes the challenges for a breakthrough in 2025

Hue officially became a centrally governed municipality on January 1, 2025, affirming a fundamental shift in its status, role, and development model within the national urban system. At the same time, Hue was selected to host the National Tourism Year 2025, becoming the focal point for a nationwide series of cultural and tourism events, further reinforcing its brand as a heritage, cultural, and festival city of Viet Nam.

In the fields of economic management, administrative reform, and the investment environment, Hue continues to rank among the top localities nationwide in the 2024 Provincial Competitiveness Index (PCI), reflecting sustained efforts to improve governance quality and accompany the business community.

These milestones provide an important foundation for Hue to pursue its goals of developing a smart, heritage-based, green, and sustainable city that meets development demands in the new context.

Impressive Growth – A Boost from Industry

Hue City recorded estimated GRDP growth of 8.5–9%. The economic structure continued to shift in a positive direction. State budget revenue reached nearly VND 15 trillion, exceeding the target assigned by the City People’s Council by 17.3% and increasing 14.5% year on year. Total social investment capital reached approximately VND 40 trillion. Public budget resources were concentrated on key, inter-regional projects with spillover effects, creating development momentum.

Hosting the National Tourism Year 2025 became a powerful “launch pad” for the city. A series of national- and international-scale events took place continuously, including Hue – Capital of Cuisine Festival, the “Mega Booming – Hue 2025” mega music concert, Miss Golf Viet Nam, the “Hello Cosmo From Vietnam” show by Miss Universe International, the Miss Viet Nam Grand Final, and the East Asia Local Government Conference. Since the beginning of the year, tourist arrivals are estimated at 5.845 million, up 65.3% year on year; international visitors reached an estimated 1.7567 million, up 41%; and tourism revenue is estimated at VND 11.748 trillion, up 62.7% year on year.

Another major highlight this year is the resurgence of industrial production. The Industrial Production Index (IIP) is estimated to increase by 14%, driven by a series of large-scale projects creating new production capacity, such as the Kim Long Motor automobile complex with an additional VND 21.178 trillion in capital, Kanglongda Factory Phase 2, EON Industry Factory, Okura Industrial Factory, and the expanded Phu Bai Brewery. These projects are gradually forming a new industrial growth pole, reducing reliance on tourism and services. Notably, output of several products surged, including automobiles of all types at 3,583 units (up 3.4 times), electricity production at 2,337 million kWh (up 42.1%), gloves of all types at 25 thousand tonnes (up 4.7 times), and wood chips at 715.4 thousand tonnes (up 7.3%).

Since the beginning of the year, the city has approved 44 new investment projects and adjusted capital for 23 projects, with registered capital totaling VND 31.788 trillion, including 10 FDI projects with registered capital of USD 36.3 million. In the economic and industrial zones alone, additional capital reached VND 21.754 trillion, mainly from the Kim Long Motor project. In addition, many important service and commercial projects have been implemented.

To date, total public investment disbursement has reached nearly 70% of the plan assigned by the Prime Minister, higher than the national average, focusing on key driver projects such as Nguyen Hoang Road and the bridge over the Huong River, the To Huu Road extension to the airport, the coastal road and Thuan An Bridge, the Chan May Port breakwater (Phase 2), resettlement areas for the high-speed railway, and Phase 2 of Hue Citadel conservation.

Alongside economic development, Hue has accelerated administrative reform and digital transformation. The city has ensured that 100% of internal operational procedures are digitized, 98.35% of administrative procedure results are digitized, and 22.9% of digitized data are reused to minimize procedures and costs for citizens and businesses. The Digital Transformation Index (DTI) has remained stable among the leading localities nationwide.

After nearly five months of operating under the two-tier local government model, the new governance structure has generally functioned smoothly and effectively. Focus has been placed on decentralization, delegation of authority, and clearly defining the responsibilities of the city People’s Committee and local authorities. The connection, synchronization, and utilization of the city’s centralized electronic data repositories have been completed, enabling reuse of digitized data to reduce and simplify administrative procedures. One hundred percent of critical systems and platforms serving state management, direction, and administration, as well as services for citizens and businesses, are operating smoothly and effectively.

With a consistent approach of accompanying businesses and investors, the city has enhanced the effectiveness of four investment project monitoring task forces led by Vice Chairpersons of the City People’s Committee to accelerate the implementation of non-budget projects. The city continues to monitor, urge, and promptly remove difficulties and bottlenecks to speed up the progress of projects already under construction, including the Creanza high-tech quartz sand processing plant; Dat Phuong white float glass manufacturing plant; Chan May Logistics Center; the Gilimex Industrial Park infrastructure investment and business project; Saigon – Chan May Industrial Park and non-tariff zone; and the technical infrastructure development projects for Binh Thanh Industrial Cluster and Dien Loc and Dien Loc 2 Industrial Clusters.

The city has effectively implemented trade promotion policies and maintained and expanded export markets, particularly for its key export products. Resolution No. 68-NQ/TW of the Politburo on developing the private economy as an important driver of the economy has been effectively implemented. Since the beginning of the year, 927 new enterprises have been established with total registered capital of VND 11.552 trillion, up 30% in number and fourfold in capital compared with the same period last year, bringing the total number of operating enterprises to approximately 6,500.

Expectations for a Breakthrough

In 2025, Hue faced a historic flood lasting 23 days from late October to early November, causing production disruptions, supply chain breakdowns, and severe impacts on services and tourism. A bright spot in disaster prevention and response efforts has been the city’s strengthened application of digital technology through the Smart City Monitoring and Operations Center (HueIOC) and the Hue-S platform. The system issued 2,480 disaster and flood warning bulletins and recorded 1,926,975 visits to the “Disaster Weather” feature, helping residents track disaster developments in real time. Hue-S enables flood monitoring via camera systems, updates rainfall at 24 automatic rain gauge stations, monitors river water levels, and provides information on reservoir regulation across the city. Through HueIOC, the city received more than 3,000 calls requesting disaster response support, of which 500 were directly assisted and 2,500 were supported by local forces, contributing to enhanced early warning, coordination, and disaster response capacity within Hue’s smart urban development.

Under the strong direction of the Central Government and the Standing Committee of the City Party Committee, with the support of ministries and sectors, and through the unity and efforts of the entire political system and the support of the people, the city has resiliently overcome severe difficulties and challenges to achieve positive results across all fields. Social welfare has been ensured, political security and public order maintained. These achievements have helped consolidate trust, strengthen consensus, and create stability for development.

Chairman Nguyen Khac Toan noted that although 2025 was an exceptionally challenging year, with 13 out of 14 key socio-economic indicators met or exceeded, the city has left a strong mark by weathering the waves and rising, while laying an important foundation for the journey toward a growth target of 10% or higher in 2026.

For the 2026–2030 period, the city has identified the heritage economy, cultural industries, and digital economy as the three main growth drivers, with the goal that by 2030 the digital economy will account for 30% of GRDP and GRDP per capita will exceed USD 5,000.

However, many bottlenecks remain in practice. Production and business activities continue to face pressure as many traditional industries encounter order shortages, shrinking markets, and a rising number of temporarily suspended enterprises, indicating weakening resilience in the private economy.

Although tourism has recovered strongly, product quality remains limited, visitor length of stay is short, and the city lacks high-end 4–5 star resorts and hotels as well as highly skilled human resources. Disbursement of public investment capital and the three national target programs has not met plans, with prolonged land clearance issues remaining a persistent bottleneck. New growth drivers such as science and technology, innovation, and digital transformation are still in their early stages and have yet to generate clear breakthroughs.

To realize the target of GRDP growth of 10% or more in 2026, the Chairman of the Hue City People’s Committee emphasized the need for high determination across the entire political system to remove bottlenecks, and required departments, sectors, and localities to develop specific plans based on the principle of “clear responsibilities, clear tasks, clear timelines, and clear results.”

At the same time, the city will continue to propose policies commensurate with the role and status of a heritage city, promote investment in cultural industries, and build special mechanisms for the Chan May – Lang Co Economic Zone to maximize growth potential and firmly usher Hue into a new development phase.

“During the 2021–2025 period, the city invested in completing infrastructure in a modern direction; gradually invested in forming and asserting the position of four centers: a distinctive cultural–tourism center; a science and technology center; a specialized healthcare center; and a multi-disciplinary, multi-sector, high-quality education and training center of national standing.
GRDP grew at an average rate of 7.54%, meeting the targets of the Party Congress Resolution, with services growing by 7.8–8.3%, industry and construction by 8–8.5%, agriculture, forestry, and fisheries by 2.5–3%, and product taxes less subsidies growing by 7%.”