With just two months left until the end of 2022, enterprises have tried to find new suppliers and diversify sources of goods to develop and serve the customers after a tough year.

After a tumultuous and challenging year for the global economy, the negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic caused many businesses to leave the market. However, others tried their best to stay and stabilise production, changing business directions to adapt to the new situation.

Experts said those staying enterprises had provided training to equip the knowledge, quickly organise the re-training of the team, focused on restructuring human resources, strengthening management skills and designing contingency scenarios.

Enterprises had to prepare all resources in terms of capital, people and goods to speed up production progress and rhythm. The sales and market development department constantly added people and designed promotional programs or preferential price policies to promote sales.

Dao Cong Lang, a representative of the An Binh Garment Export Joint Stock Company, said that the firm had almost completed its production and business plan for 2022 and was designing and developing a plan for next year.

Due to the determination to invest, in a short time, An Binh had a recovery far beyond expectations. Not only solving outstanding orders, the firm also received new orders for production, taking output to cover costs and creating more jobs and income for workers.

Lang told the media in a short time the firm had achieved business results exceeding the annual target, exploited some new markets, and found many suppliers of raw materials for production. Currently, An Binh plans to invest in a new potential field, expand the factory scale, and upgrade equipment simultaneously.

Lang said there were risks and opportunities at this time of the year. If businesses did not timely grasp and take advantage, creating a breakthrough to grow and develop strongly now, it would be extremely difficult for a high probability at other times.

Truong Chi Thien, General Director of Vinh Thanh Dat, predicted from now until the new year, the price of poultry eggs would not change as egg production would be abundant, and the business was still able to meet the 50 per cent increase in consumer demand in December.

In Ho Chi Minh City, several products such as confectionery and beverages were also being boldly set by many businesses with high output and sales targets. In addition, companies producing and trading poultry meat and eggs in many provinces and cities also completed the preparations at livestock farms and associated farms to ensure the supply of goods to the market from now until the Tet (Lunar New Year) 2023.

The Vietnam Animal Products Industry Joint Stock Company (Vissan) has also prepared a budget of about 710 billion VND (30.8 million USD) to reserve and produce lunar new year's goods, an increase of 20% compared to the same period in 2021.

According to the General Statistics Office, along with the optimism about the business prospects in the fourth quarter of 2022, the business registration in the first nine months also showed positive signs.

In the fourth quarter of 2022, businesses expect their business situation to be even better than in the third quarter of 2022 when 48.7% of enterprises have a positive assessment, and 33.9% of enterprises think that the production situation is positive and business will be stable. Only 17.4% of businesses forecast more difficulties.

Although there are many signs of growth and recovery, according to a report from the World Bank, Vietnam needs to be cautious with inflation risks related to food prices and basic commodities. In addition, although fuel prices have cooled recently, global fuel price volatility remains unpredictable.

In addition, the social assistance system needs to be strengthened, including registration, target selection and disbursement systems, to facilitate access to the affected people.

The WB also pointed to a more serious deceleration than expected of Vietnam's leading important trading partners as the main risk for the external economic sector. In addition, geopolitical tensions also increase uncertainty and can cause changes in trade and investment trends, affecting a highly open economy like Vietnam.

Earlier, Carolyn Turk, World Bank Country Director for Vietnam, also said that to maintain economic growth at the desired rate, Vietnam needed to increase productivity by 2-3% per year.

International experience shows that productivity gains can only be achieved by investing in the education system, which is an important part of the necessary investments and reforms package. She added that a competitive and productive workforce was what the country needed in the long term./.