VNStockNews.com - Vietnam enterprises’ optimistic trade expectations in the next six months continue to shine. A HSBC trade confidence index survey released last week reads that Vietnam scored 132 points in 2010’s first quarter, up from 110 in the second quarter of 2009, only behind indices of India and United Arab Emirates.
Some 300 importers and exporters in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, with an annual turnover of less than $10 million, took part in the latest survey.
The majority of respondents in Vietnam (75 per cent) expected their trade volumes to increase in the next six months, up from 65 per cent from the 2009 survey. Some 17 per cent of those polled think that trade volumes will remain constant. Some other 4 per cent of respondents said that they anticipate trade volumes to decrease in the next six months.
Vietnam is also top of 17 markets surveyed about the need for trade finance, with 74 per cent expecting their need for trade finance to increase in the next six months, rising from 66 per cent from 2009.
Do Thuy Nhu Thuy, head of HSBC Vietnam’s trade and supply chain, said the survey results closely reflected the market changes during the last six months, representing an optimistic outlook for Vietnam’s economy in 2010’s second half. More Vietnam-based traders expected higher trade volumes and a greater need for trade finance.
“We are pleased to see that for the first time in three index reports of this survey, Vietnamese traders are less worried about the impact of exchange rates on their businesses even though they still see it as their main challenge in terms of growth. This means firms constantly look to exchange rates as a risk to be managed in order to succeed, rather than to fear as a growth barrier,” said Thuy.
Some 51 per cent of respondents thought that exchange rate would have unfavourable impact on their business with in comparison of 80 per cent of polled enterprises in 2009.
Compared with the last survey in the second half of 2009, a larger percentage of 69 per cent respondents said they would accept smaller orders to reduce transaction exposure in comparison with 12 per cent in 2009’s survey.
Some 17 per cent of respondents selected export credit insurance and 24 per cent used trade finance via banks, among the choices preferred by Vietnamese traders to overcome non-payment risks from buyers.
South East Asia has emerged as the second market behind greater China as the market most Vietnamese traders do business with and the most promising market for trade growth in the next six months.
