As many as 120 enterprises nationwide have won strong brand awards 2009, announced organisers on March 29 in Hanoi.

The winners were selected based on different criteria such as leadership capability, quality, enterprise renovation capability, human resource, brand name protection, stability and operational performance.

“This year, the award focus on honouring domestic businesses for their increasing efforts to ensure their sustainable development and improve the quality of services and products in an attempt to better serve customers,” said Dao Nguyen Cat, editor-in-chief of Vietnam Economic Times , one of the awards organisers.

“With seven main criteria with reference to the appraisal methods currently applied by prestigious institutions around the world, the awards are expected to encourage local firms to draw up suitable business and brand name development strategies,” said Nguyen Quoc Thinh, director of the Trade University’s Brand Name centre.

The selected brand names are involved in the banking, insurance and financial services, food an drink, real estate, garment and textile, chemical, handicraft, IT and telecommunication sectors.

The awards ceremony will be held in the capital on April 4.

A survey by Vneconomy on the psychology of Vietnamese consumers revealed that 47 percent out of 3,140 participants said that they chose locally-made goods to support local businesses; 24 percent chose goods that were reasonably priced while the rest chose due to easily understandable origin of products, good quality and after sales services./.