Manufacturing firms perform better in Q2

The foreign direct investment firms have the highest business confidence with 85.7 percent believing that their business improved and stabilised during April-June. Meanwhile, the percentage for state-owned and private companies was 80.8 percent and 81.6 percent, respectively.

In stark contrast, 17.4 percent of the firms said that they had to struggle more than the previous quarter.

Competitiveness was touted as the dominant factor that left enormous impacts on production and business activities. According to the statistics office, 59.4 percent of the firms said that they were affected by competitive edge while 46.2 percent believed that underperformed business was spurred by low demands in the domestic market. 

Financial issue, shortage of qualified labourers, high deposit rate, lack of materials, and out-of-date technology and equipment were the other factors challenging local businesses in the period.

Regarding volume of orders, 82.8 percent of the firms reckoned that the number would be higher than the previous quarter while 17.2 percent said that they would face less orders than the previous quarter. Up to 84.8 percent of the enterprises affirmed that they had more orders from overseas market.

Product inventory was reported to decrease or remain stable among 81.7 percent of the domestic companies.

However, the statistics department said that businesses have more positive outlook for their business prospects in Quarter 3 with 88.5 percent of the firms upbeat about their performance. 

The statistics were compiled based on the latest survey on the quarterly business performance trend of 6,500 industrial processing and manufacturing companies in 63 provinces and State-run cities.