Private Firms Post Strong Growth

The Vietnam Report Joint Stock Company (VNR) has collaborated with Vietnamnet online newspaper to announce the VNR500 list - the 500 largest enterprises in Vietnam. This is the sixth edition that VNR has published, recognising and honouring Vietnamese enterprises that achieved great success in 2011.

 

Similarly to the five VNR500 lists published previously, the ten largest enterprises of Vietnam are dominated by State - owned enterprises. However, this year, Samsung Electronics Vietnam appears very surprisingly in the top five largest enterprises. The number of private firms entering the top list has steadily risen over the past six years. Only 103 private companies were selected for the VNR500 list in 2007 but the figure surged to up to 225 entities this year, rising over two times. Big enterprises are still the familiar ones, DOJI Gold & Gems Group, FPT Group or Asia Commercial Bank.

 

As published, Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City are home to most of the enterprises with the largest sizes, revenues and earnings. They account for more than 57 percent of those on the 2012 VNR500 list, their total earnings in 2011 made up 46.5 percent and 27.7 percent, respectively, of the total earnings of VNR500.

 

Especially, Bac Ninh province has made an impression of being in the top 5 provinces having enterprises in the VNR500 list in terms of total revenues, most from FDI enterprises. This success mostly comes from the participation of Samsung Electronics Vietnam, which earns several incentives from Vietnamese Government. Thanks to export revenues, Samsung has reached the top ten of the VNR500 for the first time.

 

In the answers framework of the surveys for the VNR500 list, more than 50 percent of enterprises’ leaders said their businesses are getting worse compared to 2011. Only 11 percent believed their present businesses were getting better than 2011. Nearly 100 percent of bank representatives indicated that business results in 2012 are not as good as that in 2011. And 60 percent of iron and steel - construction enterprises shared this assessment. This rate drops in other industry sectors.

 

Most enterprises, two thirds, do not expect the economy to recover in 2013. Only 33 percent of enterprises believe that economy will start to recover from the last six months of 2013; while only one percent of enterprises believe the recovery will recover in the next six months. The confidence in economic recovery has decreased since August, when almost 60 percent of surveyed enterprises thought that economy would improve in 2013 or even earlier.

 

According to the evaluation of Vietnam Report, in the context of economic turmoil, big enterprises in VNR500 will face many challenges in 2013, but there is also the opportunity for them to conduct restructuring, raise their competitiveness and get ready for a new expansion period of the economy.