Vietnam's southern economic hub Ho Chi Minh (HCM) City reported its economy is recovering with rising export turnover and stable business growth in the past four months of this year. Local retail sales and service turnover reached 51.8 trillion VND (2.45 billion U.S. dollars) in April, up by 3.9 percent over March and by 11.7 percent compared with the same period last year, according to statistics from the HCM City People's Committee on Friday. For the first four months, total retail sales and service turnover totaled 204.5 trillion VND (9.66 billion U.S. dollars), a 12.1 percent increase over last year. Export turnover has shown an upward trend. In April, the city achieved export turnover of 2.42 billion U.S. dollars, up by 3 percent over March and by 22.1 percent over last year. The four-month export turnover was recorded at 8.85 billion dollars, an increase of 0.6 percent over the same period last year. In April, the city authorities granted licenses to 7,622 new businesses with a total investment of 42.55 trillion VND (over 2 billion U.S. dollars), a 52 percent increase compared with last year. They also licensed 98 new investment projects with total registered capital of 701.4 million dollars, a jump of 399 percent in capital against last year.