HCMC Party Secretary Nguyen Thien Nhan said at a Thursday meeting a modern and industrialized HCMC would achieve high-income status with GDP per capita income reaching $12,570 by 2030, nearly twice higher than last year’s figure of $6,862.

The city also strives to become the economic, financial, scientific and technological center of Southeast Asia by 2030.

During the 2021-2025 period, the city would make every efforts to turn itself into a smart city by 2025, Nhan said.

The city has been struggling with severe traffic congestion for decades, with its administration responding by investing heavily in metro routes, which have however kept hitting delays.

HCMC aims to remain the leading growth driver of the southern key economic region.

Nhan also acknowledged that in the next five to ten years in the country and the world would have undergo changes that could affect the city’s development plans.

As the nation's commercial hub and biggest moneymaker, the city's gross regional domestic product growth reached 7.86 percent last year while the country’s GDP expanded by 7.02 percent. Last year, the city also contributed to 22.27 percent to national GDP growth, according to official statistics.

Last year, Prime Minister Nguyen Xuan Phuc expressed his hope Vietnam would become a high-income country by 2045. Vietnam could soon climb onto the upper-middle income classification with Gross National Income (GNI) per capita at $3,996-$12,375, Phuc said. This group includes China, Malaysia, Mexico, South Africa, and Thailand.

The GDP per capita for Vietnamese was $2,740 last year, according to official statistics.

The idea of turning HCMC into a financial center for Vietnam and ASEAN has been on the Politburo's table since 2002, but not much progress has been made.

The government has recently agreed with the city's plan to turn its three eastern Districts 2, 9 and Thu Duc into an "innovative urban area" that can contribute 30 percent of the city’s economic growth, or 4-5 percent of the nation’s.