HCMC – Vietnam’s business confidence has improved in the first half of this year although many parts of the world continue to deal with financial problems, according to the latest Business Barometer Survey released by Nielsen Vietnam on Tuesday.
The third online survey, carried from March to May this year, is designed to gauge Vietnam’s business leaders’ sentiment. Topics include advertising spending and growth forecasts among other hot topics. It is conducted twice-yearly and covers companies from various industries throughout Vietnam.
The survey finds out that in 2009, Vietnamese businesses spoke of recovery and optimism for the New Year. And now, halfway through 2010, business sentiment continues to look positive.
According to the survey, over the next 12 months, senior business leaders are expecting to see even higher growth for their own industry, at 13.6% versus the previous forecast of 11.3%.
Darin Williams, managing director of the Nielsen Company Vietnam, said in a statement that despite the slight dip in consumer confidence, business leaders still expect double-digit growth for their business and industry.
He noted that “companies plan to hire more staff in 2010 and are looking at new avenues of growth to support these aggressive growth targets.”
For the third consecutive time, competition pressure and growth targets top the list of concerns (at 68%) for business leaders. This was followed by the ability to overcome price increases (59%), inflation (56%), and skilled labor shortage (29%).
For market trend, businesses anticipate that consumers will purchase more local Vietnamese brands over the coming 6 to 12 months.
They believe that local consumers will continue their cost-conscious shopping behavior by buying bigger pack sizes to save money (44%), purchase more on promotion (41%), change to different channels to save money (37%) and so on.
Rural areas will continue to be a potential market when companies look to expand and achieve their growth targets there. About 71% of those surveyed stated they will look to rural areas for growth this year.
