HSBC survey: Vietnamese businesses hold positive outlook

VGP – An increase of 10 points in Q4, 2009 against the same period of the previous year revealed that Vietnamese small- and medium-sized enterprises are more confident in the business prospects, said the Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC).

February 04, 2010 10:18 AM GMT+7

Vietnamese small- and medium-sized enterprises are more confident in their business prospects – Illustration photo

The rate of Vietnamese business confidence has reached the record high since the Southeast Asian country was initially hit by the global financial crisis in Q4, 2008.

The semi-annual HSBC Small Business Confidence Monitor is the largest to date, capturing the views of more than 6,000 small businesses across 20 key markets in Asia, the Middle East, Europe, and Latin America.

The results were used to calculate the confidence index ranging from zero to 200.

With 160 points, Việt Nam takes the lead in Asia and is followed by India at 132, China at 121, and Singapore at 117.

The small- and medium-sized Vietnamese enterprises (SMEs), according to HSBC, are also more optimistic about their investment and business plans in the first half of 2010. About 66% of them are projecting to expand business activities while 32% are planning to maintain operation. Only 1% has schedules to slash investment.

Over a half of the Vietnamese businesses unveiled their plans to recruit more employees.

The survey figures out that China, the EU and the Republic of Korea are major markets of Vietnamese SMEs, accounting for 28%, 22% and 22% respectively.

By Kim Anh