Vietnam is the fourth most confident country in the world-up five places since March this year, the Nielsen Company’s global consumer confidence survey showed.

Consumer confidence in Vietnam had increased for the first time after declining for six consecutive surveys since March, 2007.

Its confidence index jumped 24 points from 85 in April this year to 109 this month, in contrast to the world average which jumped 9 points over the same period to stand at 86.

Hong Kong was in the lead, up 14 points in the third quarter from 79 to 93 index points, followed by the Republic of Korea (+13 points) and Brazil (+12 points).

Only 69 percent of Vietnamese surveyed said their nation was in a recession compared to 76 percent in April. Fifty-five percent said yes, the country would be out of the recession within the next 12 months, 22 percent said no and 23 percent did not know.

Complementing the jump in confidence, 54 percent of Vietnamese believed job prospects would be good to excellent over the next 12 months. Sixty-six percent also believed the state of their personal finances was good to excellent.

However, despite a relatively positive outlook on jobs and finances, 46 percent stated the timing was “not so good” to buy the things they wanted and needed./.