HCMC will restrict spending on public autos, seminars, meetings, groundbreaking ceremonies and overseas business trips for its officials as one of the measures to better manage the State budget and public assets at agencies.

The city government said in a recent report that it will stop disbursements of the budget for unnecessary regular spending and slow-paced projects.

Regarding budget collections, the city government will adopt various measures to prevent smuggling, trade fraud and transfer pricing, and strictly monitor value-added tax (VAT) refunds.

The tax authority will put more efforts on recovering tax arrears and minimizing new arrears in order to bring overdue tax payments down below 5% towards the year-end.

According to Dao Thi Huong Lan, director of the HCMC Department of Transport, the city’s budget revenue neared VND250 trillion last year, up 10.29% against 2013.

The city aims for tax and fee collections of VND265.776 trillion this year, up 8.08% compared to last year,  gross domestic product growth of 9.5% or more, and exports increasing by 8-10%.