Survey shows positive outlook for manufacturing industry in Q2. (Photo: VNA) Hanoi (VNA) – Vietnam’s manufacturing andprocessing industry is optimistic for the second quarter of 2018, with 91percent of enterprises in the industry predicting production volume to expandor stay flat from the first three months of the year, according to a recentsurvey by the General Statistics Office (GSO).
The GSO conducted a nationwide survey in January-March tofind out business trends of the sector, with 5,850 companies responding.
The survey indicated that, among the respondents, foreign-investedfirms are the most optimistic about their prospects as 93.6 percent expected productionto increase or remain stable. They were followed by State-owned enterprises andnon-state owned companies, with 91.7 percent and 89.9 percent, respectively, optimistic.
The tobacco industry is particularly buoyant with 72.2percent of tobacco producers expressing confidence in growth, followed by pharmaceuticals(71.1 percent), electronics, computers and optical products (70.6 percent),beverages (63.6 percent), and textiles (63 percent).
Some 90.8 percent of respondents predicted the number ofnew orders in the second quarter of 2018 will increase (53 percent) and remainstable (37.8 percent) from the previous quarter. Similarly, 90.5 percent ofexporters expect to receive higher orders (43.6 percent) or havethe number of export orders unchanged (46.9 percent).
Most the companies, or 51.7 percent, said they would keeptheir finished goods inventory at about the same level of the last quarterwhile 32.8 percent said they would reduce the level. Only 15.5 percent arelooking to expand inventory.
Metal manufacturing is likely to see the largest fall infinished goods inventory as 39.7 percent of producers said they would reduce inventory,closely followed by pharmaceuticals (38.6 percent), non-metallic mineralproduct manufacturing (38.4 percent), textiles (36.8 percent), food processingand production of electronics, computers and optical products (both 34.9percent).
The survey also revealed that 69.7 percent of the firms’ costper unit will be unchanged and 10.1 percent will cut the cost per unit. About20.2 percent said they would increase the cost per unit.-VNA
VNA
