78% of businesses confident in Vietnam economic growth next year

As many as 78% of top businesses in Vietnam show confidence in the country's fast economic development next year, according to a November survey by Vietnam Report, a business ranking firm.

Specifically, as many as 35.1% and 42.9% of surveyed firms have "clear confidence" and "relatively clear confidence", respectively. Only 22.1% noted lackluster beliefs.

The surveyed businesses are 108 listed firms which are among the top 500 companies in Vietnam in terms of revenue, profit, growth, assets and workforce as ranked by Vietnam Report.

Another November survey by the firm shows that experts expect Vietnam to reach economic growth of 7.5% this year and 6.4% next year.

Vietnam Report noted prospective sectors in 2023, including information technology-telecom, with 61.7% of surveyed firms expecting breakthrough growth; tourism-entertainment (44.7%), and transport-logistics (40.4%). Low growth is expected for export-dependent sectors, including seafood, textile, footwear, and real estate-construction, at only 12.8%, 4.3%, and 6.4%, respectively.

Moderate growth between 29.8% and 21.3% is projected for sectors like pharmaceuticals-healthcare, electricity-energy, banking-finance, retail, food-beverage, agriculture, and industry-processing.

Regarding short-term and long-term business strategies, risk management and continuous operation, workforce training, and corporate culture developments are top tasks, with 94.5%, 93.6%, and 91.5% of surveyed firms focusing on these.

Notably, risk management and continuous operation are not a traditional focus, but this has changed because companies have had to deal with the pandemic and global economic problems.

Besides, Vietnam Report released its list of 500 biggest businesses in Vietnam in 2022 (VNR500) in terms of revenue. It showed that industry-construction accounted for the biggest portion with 72.4% of businesses, followed by service with 23.8%, and agriculture-forestry-fisheries with 3.8%.

The retail sector recorded the most impressive growth of 120% in revenue this year. While four sectors of natural resources-petroleum, steel, chemicals, and transport-logistics recorded positive growth, sectors of finance, electricity, food-beverage-tobacco, construction, information-media, and mechanics all recorded negative growth.

Regarding corporate efficiency, the FDI sector topped the list with a 8.4% hike in return on assets (ROA) in 2022, followed by the state sector with 6.1% and the domestic private sector with 5.4%. The overall ROA was 5.8%.

For return on sales (ROS), the state sector led the list with 8.9%, followed by the FDI sector with 8.5% and the domestic private sector with 6.5%. The average ROS was 7.1%.

Regarding return on equity (ROE), the state sector was the worst performer with negative 8%. The FDI and the domestic private sectors recorded 14.3% and 15.2%, respectively. The average index was 11.2%.