On the afternoon of August 5, 2025, the 7th Ho Chi Minh City – Hyogo Prefecture Economic Forum, themed “Green and Digital Transition Trends: For the Goal of Sustainable Development,” took place in Ho Chi Minh City.
The event was jointly organized by the Ho Chi Minh City Investment and Trade Promotion Center (ITPC) and the Hyogo Prefectural Government of Japan. It gathered leaders, experts, and businesses from both sides to foster investment–trade cooperation and share experiences in sustainable development in the green–digital era.
As a keynote speaker, Mr. Đinh Hồng Kỳ, Chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City Green Business Association (HGBA), represented the Vietnamese business community and candidly addressed the major challenges faced by enterprises in Ho Chi Minh City during the green transition, such as financial constraints, limited technological capacity, and a policy ecosystem that has yet to achieve full coherence.
However, he emphasized that these very “bottlenecks” open up significant opportunities for deeper cooperation with Japan, particularly in areas such as building megacities, developing sustainable infrastructure, and transferring advanced technologies. Ho Chi Minh City, as the economic locomotive of southern Vietnam, must take the lead in institutional improvement, fostering innovation, and proactively embracing scientific progress as well as learning from successful transition models worldwide.
The forum also featured valuable insights from Hyogo Prefecture experts, focusing on digital transformation strategies, investment environment, and Japan’s sustainable development trends. In response, representatives from Ho Chi Minh City agencies—including the Department of Finance, the Institute for Development Studies, and the Digital Transformation Center—shared strategic orientations on investment, technological innovation, and green economic development for the city in the coming period.
The forum not only established a mechanism for dialogue but also laid the groundwork for the realization of broad and substantive cooperation commitments—towards a sustainable, green, and digital future between Vietnam and Japan.
