A shopper at a supermarket in Ho Chi Minh City (Source: laodong)

Companies in the State-owned sector are most optimistic about the business outlook in the third quarter, with 43% predicting better performance. The rate is 42.6% among the foreign-invested enterprises.

On the contrary, 17.1% of the surveyed enterprises showed their worry about more difficulties. The rate of such businesses is 17.3% among the domestic private enterprises compared to the 16.4% among the State-owned firms and 16.8% among the FDI companies, according to the survey, which covered 6,114 businesses from the processing-manufacturing sector and 6,056 from the construction sector.

In the survey for the second quarter, 22.3% of the businesses foresaw more difficulties, an increase of 3.9 percentage points compared to the first quarter of 2024.

To ease the pressure from rising input costs, 50.1% of businesses proposed that the State continue to reduce lending interest rates, enabling them to have capital for investing in production.

Meanwhile, 28.2% of businesses recommended that banks continue to simplify and cut loan procedures and conditions, making it easier for them to access capital.

According to the GSO, two biggest difficulties facing processing-manufacturing businesses are low domestic demand and fierce competition in the domestic market, as said by 54.4% and 50.4% of businesses, respectively.

Therefore, businesses proposed that the State continue to roll out effective measures to stimulate domestic demand and strengthen communications for the movement of "Vietnamese people prioritise Vietnamese products".

Alongside, 26.1% of the businesses underlined the need for the Government, ministries, sectors, and localities to strengthen trade promotion and seek new markets and new partners to support them to increase consumption of goods in domestic and foreign markets.

At the same time, 24.5% of the businesses emphasised the need to continue improving the quality of logistics services, while 23.4% proposed reducing land rent for production and business, 22.4% of suggested ensuring stable power supply for production, and 31.5% mentioned the necessity of continuous administrative reform.

To promote industrial development, the Ministry of Industry and Trade will accelerate the construction of two technical centres to support industrial development in the North and the South. This is one of the fundamental solutions to overcome the limitations of the industrial sector, especially in terms of autonomy in production.

The ministry will continue to speed up the transition of the industrial structure towards higher contributions from the process-manufacturing sector, while applying measures to remove difficulties facing businesses and improve their competitiveness, and building technical barriers for imports in order to support domestic products and increase localisation rate.

More resources will also be mobilised for the expansion of industrial projects, especially those in the basic industries and key export production industries.

Data from the GSO showed that the index of industrial production (IIP) in June was estimated to rise 0.7% compared to that of May, and 10.9% over the same period last year.

An upturn was seen in the IIP in the first six months of this year in 56 localities, while a downturn was recorded in the remaining seven localities.