An opportunity for businesses in the second half of the year

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Oil and gas enterprises have many opportunities for strong growth. Photo: ST

“Defensive” position

According to statistics from the first six months of the year, on average, there were 19,500 newly established and returned enterprises in each month across the country, while 13,900 units withdrawing from the market. According to Business Registration Administration (Ministry of Planning and Investment), the sectors with the highest number of businesses returning to operations were wholesale, retail, car and motorbike repairs, and manufacturing and processing.

In the remaining months of the year, to support the economy with sustainable growth, according to experts shared at the "Financial Investment 2022" seminar held recently, there is a great need for businesses in fields with potential for development, creating a "defensive" position for the economy against risks and fluctuations from the external economy.

Accordingly, Vietnam's service, retail, tourism, and aviation sectors are seeing a strong recovery. From the beginning of this year, the share of the retail sector's GDP increased strongly, by about 7-8%. For example, Mobile World Investment JSC achieved net revenue of US$59.324 billion in the first five months, up 14% over the same period last year. Similarly, Phu Nhuan Jewelry JSC also recorded net revenue of VND15.583 billion, up 46.6% and profit after tax of VND1.006 billion, up 46.9% compared with the same period.

Additionally, according to Tran Khanh Hien, Research Director of VNDirect Securities Company, many raw materials such as iron, steel, fertilizer, and food have strong momentum and are driven by supply chain disruption, as China continues to maintain its "zero Covid" strategy, and crisis between Russia and Ukraine. Some industries will benefit, such as the production of inputs for food production such as corn, sugar, and powdered milk; in which, the dairy food group will have better growth than the others.

Along with that, public investment will be promoted strongly in the remaining months of the year, so businesses related to this field can be a bright spot to return to the "stage" in the fourth quarter of 2022. According to experts from VNDirect, the group of businesses in the development of energy and electricity infrastructure, oil and gas industries also have opportunities to develop strongly.

According to economic expert Can Van Luc, Vietnam's growth drivers are both supply-side and demand-side. The supply side has two pillars: processing and manufacturing industries and services. Specifically, domestic tourism has recovered quickly, along with accommodation, dining, and retail, which have returned to nearly the same level as before the pandemic. On the demand side, exports still grew well, investment and consumption recovered better.

Expectations for the second half of the year

Even so, businesses still place a lot of expectations and beliefs on the development of the whole economy. According to results of an enterprise survey by the General Statistics Office, it is expected that in the third quarter, 85% of enterprises participating in the survey assessed the trend to be stable and better compared to the second quarter. Only 15% of enterprises forecasted a more difficult situation.

As a business in the field of seafood and retail, Nguyen Van Tinh, representative of Vietnam Clean Fish JSC, expected that after a difficult period due to the pandemic, the economy has returned to normal activities, including travel and trade with foreign markets. Therefore, he believed that the seafood industry could grow by 300-500% in the second half of this year and would develop more in the following years. Tinh also said that the enterprise had surveyed a number of markets to be able to boost exports when the pandemic was basically under control.

Talking about the motivation to develop in the remaining months of 2022, a representative of Vietnam Clean Fish JSC said that the company would develop strong products, build a self-contained factory meeting export standards, apply technology in preservation, and promote online sales channels.

Additionally, many businesses expect the business market to be "normalized", helping them take advantage of opportunities from trade agreements and investment transformation waves. Many experts believed that the profit of listed companies this year could increase from 20-25%, only lower than the level of 30-33% of last year, but in general, it was still positive.

However, to support businesses to enter and re-enter the market, experts said that in addition to continuing to implement supporting policies, more attention should be paid to businesses with production factors. Moreover, it is necessary to simplify administrative procedures and improve the business environment.