Businesses express hope in economic outlook for 2022

The resilience of businesses has declined after nearly two years of fighting Covid-19, but with a change in pandemic prevention and control strategy, they are now quite confident about the prospects in 2022.

A survey by the General Statistics Office (GSO) in the fourth quarter of 2021 revealed that businesses in the processing and manufacturing sector have great expectations for the new year.

Among respondent enterprises, 45.6 per cent believe that trends in the first quarter of 2022 will be better than in the fourth quarter of 2021, while 36.1 per cent believe production and business will be stable and only 18.3 per cent forecast greater difficulties.

The foreign-invested sector is the most optimistic, with 83.1 per cent of enterprises forecasting that production and business in the first quarter of 2022 will be better and more stable than in the fourth quarter of 2021. The rate among State-owned enterprises and non-State enterprises is 82 per cent and 81.2 per cent, respectively.

Businesses in other sectors also believe in the prospects for 2022. With an increase in vaccination rates, changes in the strategy to prevent and control Covid-19, and, especially, the reopening of international flights from January, the tourism industry will prosper, Mr. Nguyen Quoc Ky, Chairman of the Board of Directors at Vietravel Holdings, said.

After nearly five months of delay, the Viet Dung Aluminum Joint Stock Company posted growth again in the closing two months of 2021. It very much expects a recovery in 2022 as investment activities restart, according to Ms. Bui Phuong Thao Len, Market and Marketing Director at Viet Dung Aluminum.

However, in order for businesses to recover effectively, the government must do many things, including introducing support policies or tax and fee reductions.