Bright spots at the beginning of the year

Production is thriving, businesses expect better business results in 2024. Photo: H.Diu

Exciting production, positive orders

In the first 2 months of 2024, all economic regions have good development indexes, agriculture develops stably, industrial production increases by 5.7% over the same period (same period decreased by 2.9%), Total retail sales of goods and consumer service revenue increased by 8.1%. Along with that, the purchasing managers index (PMI) in February reached 50.4 points, and in January reached 50.3 points. Total import-export turnover in 2 months increased by 18.6%, of which exports increased by 19.2%, imports increased by 18%, trade surplus of 4.72 billion USD. Development investment continues to achieve positive results.

In particular, business development continues to trend upward. In 2 months, there were over 22.1 thousand newly established businesses, an increase of 12.4% and 19,000 businesses resumed operations, an increase of 4.4%, bringing the total number of businesses entering the market to more than 41,000, an increase 8.5% over the same period.

Recognized by businesses, right from the beginning of the year, business and trade activities have been more prosperous and vibrant.

At M2 Vietnam Joint Stock Company, in mid-February 2024, the Company started construction of M2 Factory Hung Ha factory in Thai Binh with a total expected investment capital of nearly 148 billion VND. Mr. Nguyen Hai Duong, Chairman of the Board of Directors, General Director of M2 Vietnam, said that the project will serve domestic and export orders because the demand for the garment market is expected to increase.

Also in the textile industry, TNG Investment and Trading Joint Stock Company's revenue in the first 2 months of 2024 reached VND 871 billion, an increase of 12.7% over the same period in 2023. In particular, this enterprise also informed, TNG's orders have been filled at factories until the end of the first half of 2024 thanks to many large partners in the US such as Columbia, The Children's Place, Sportmaster, Costco... having sold out of inventory... Therefore, In 2024, TNG plans to increase total capacity by 15% by deploying 45 more sewing lines and recruiting 3,000 more workers.

For the steel industry, after 2 years of enduring many difficulties, from the end of 2023 until now, business activities are increasingly improving. Not only did revenue increase and profits returned to many businesses, but the number of orders also gradually grew and many cooperation opportunities were opened. Recently, Hoa Phat Group Joint Stock Company announced that it has exported the first batch of steel pipes to a retail chain with more than 1,200 stores across Japan. It is expected that shortly, the Japanese partner will come to Vietnam to discuss orders for 2024 and plans to continue importing other product lines after this order.

Furthermore, looking at the figures achieved on import and export, we can see that domestic businesses are trying their best to achieve high growth. Accordingly, in the total export turnover in the first 2 months of 2024, the domestic economic sector achieved a lower value, with 16.14 billion USD, much lower than the figure of 43.2 billion USD of the business sector with foreign investment capital, but had an impressive growth rate of 33.3% compared to 14.7% respectively. This result partly shows the high number of orders as well as the ability of domestic businesses to take advantage of opportunities opened up from international markets and free trade agreements.

How to meet conditions and opportunities?

However, in reality, there are still many limitations that Vietnamese businesses must pay attention to for future progress.

For example, in coffee export, Mr. Le Duc Huy, General Director of 2-9 Dak Lak Import-Export Company Limited, said that the demand for coffee in the world market has increased so coffee prices have also increased significantly. . But this person shared that although there are many offers to buy goods, the business does not dare to accept additional unplanned orders because domestic supply is difficult to meet. Currently, Vietnam's coffee output remains unchanged, but part of the supply must still be reserved to compensate for previous missing orders. Therefore, many orders had to be transferred to other countries such as Indonesia, Brazil...

Or with some supporting industrial manufacturing enterprises, the situation of not daring to accept more orders also occurs. Part of the reason is due to lack of human resources and raw materials, most of it is due to insufficient factory capacity to meet both the quality and quantity of international partners' requirements.

From the above issues, the requirement for Vietnamese businesses is to improve quality and production capacity. At the same time, businesses need to have a joint plan to develop raw material areas, ensure a stable source of goods and have specific order plans. This will help businesses avoid being passive, falling into a loss situation, or even being fined by the contract.

Regarding taking advantage of opportunities, for example, Sao Ta Joint Stock Company said that the opportunity from the international market is that global inflation tends to decrease; Along with that, political fluctuations in the international market also change the trade landscape, indirectly impacting and creating some good opportunities for Vietnamese seafood... Therefore, this enterprise has Prepare your mind as well as build a flexible scenario, ready to respond to fluctuations, including continuing to maintain existing markets, developing the Japanese market and gradually penetrating the Chinese market. As well as improving product diversification but must be suitable for factory conditions, especially promoting the production of deeply processed, value-added products.

In addition, according to experts, to facilitate business development, solutions to improve the business environment and enhance competitiveness need to continue to be implemented more effectively, drastically and substantially. . Mr. Hoang Quang Phong, Vice Chairman of the Vietnam Confederation of Commerce and Industry (VCCI), said that it is necessary to create a fair, equitable and open competitive environment so that businesses can use their full potential and ability to achieve high efficiency in operations.