Hanoi (VNA) – Hanoi’s economy grewin the first months of this year, with good performance in theindustry-construction and service sectors, according to the municipal People’sCommittee.

During January-March, the city’s gross regionaldomestic product (GRDP) increased by 7.06 percent, the industry-construction sectorgrew by 6.99 percent, the service sector by 7.26 percent and the agriculturalsector recorded growth of 0.54 percent.

Development investment rose by 9.5 percent,while total revenue from goods and services increased by 7.6 percent and exportturnover went up 2.1 percent.

In the period, the capital’s investmentenvironment improved as well, with the city climbing 10 spots in the provincialcompetitiveness index, ranking 14th out of 63 provinces and cities –its highest ever ranking.

The achievements were attributed tomunicipal authorities’ efforts to attract investment and speed upinfrastructure construction and key projects, including reforms inadministrative procedures.

In the first quarter, the city focused onattracting foreign investment, with priority given to hi-tech and environmentally-friendlyprojects and competitive products.

Hanoi recorded 122 new foreign-investedprojects with registered capital of 580 million USD. It also witnessed theestablishment of 5,800 enterprises with total registered capital of 39.8trillion VND (1.75 billion USD), up 12 percent in number and seven percent incapital compared with the same period in 2016.

However, in the period, the inventory indexof the processing and manufacturing sector remained high, up 65.1 percent fromthe same period last year. Industrial production recorded growth, but not asmuch as expected, as several important sectors like food processing andelectronics and computer manufacturing reported low growth rates.

In the remaining months of 2017, themunicipal People’s Committee directed authorities to focus on fulfilling settargets and plans, especially those related to budget collection and issuingland use right certificates.

Last year, Hanoi’s gross domestic productrose by 8.2 percent – the highest growth rate over the past five years.-VNA