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Thanh Nien Online
Date: 18 Jan 2008
Section: Business
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Title: Vietnam business optimism is third highest globally
Vietnam business optimism is third highest globally
Vietnamese businesses are the third most optimistic in the world
about the economic outlook for this year, a survey by British
consulting and accounting firm Grant Thornton has found.
Customers try electric fans at High Quality
Vietnamese Goods in Ho Chi Minh City,
September 2007.
The survey, part of its International Business Report 2008, places the Vietnamese executives’ positive
optimism figure - the percentage balance of the respondents who are optimistic and those who are
pessimistic - at 87 percent, behind only Filipinos and Indians at 95 percent.
India had ranked first and the Philippines second last year.
Singapore, Hong Kong, Poland, and Australia follow, with China in eighth place, down from third last
year.
The optimism in Vietnam can be attributed to the robust economic growth of recent years and widespread expectations that the momentum will be sustained during 2008, the report says.
The Vietnamese business leaders’ positive optimism about revenue growth, profitability growth, and
employment levels are at 98, 97, and 87 percent respectively.
Somewhat less, but still strong, is positive optimism for selling price increases, exports, and investment.
The largest majority cited general economic conditions as their primary reason but only slightly ahead
of the political situation.
Interestingly, they have the highest confidence in their country’s political situation in Asia with 49 percent positive, while Singapore is at 33 percent positive, and Thailand 25 percent.
“These first time survey results for Vietnam are very encouraging.
We have witnessed significant growth and improvement recently,” said Ken Atkinson, managing partner
of Grant Thornton Vietnam.
The survey, now in its seventh year globally, includes Vietnam for the first time.
The survey polled business leaders in 34 countries and territories accounting for more than four fifths of
the world’s gross domestic product (GDP), including the U.S, Brazil, Japan, the U.K, Italy, and Mexico.
Despite the credit crunch panic, global business optimism has only dropped slightly, it says, adding 42
percent of business leaders report feeling optimistic about the economic outlook for the next twelve
months, just 3 percent lower than in January 2007.
Optimism in the US has even gone up to 22 percent from 14 per-cent last year though the country faces
the subprime mortgage crisis and resulting credit crunch.
But optimism across Asia about the regional economy fell 14 percent from 54 percent last year, pulled
down by increasing pessimism in Japan, Thailand, and Taiwan.
Japanese businesses are the least optimistic in the survey, with the score slumping from minus 5
percent to minus 44 percent, a trend seen since 2003.
Thailand too sees a big dip as optimism has fallen from a high of 30 percent positive in 2007 to minus
30 percent.
Reported by Minh Quang