Dinh Duy
Vietnamese consumers have started 2015 with confidence largely intact after a tumultuous 2014, Glenn Maguire, ANZ Chief Economist for South Asia and ASEAN & Pacific, said in the ANZ-Roy Morgan Vietnam Consumer Confidence Index report.
“The most interesting aspect of the Vietnamese consumer confidence readings is that the very large decline in international oil prices has not been able to arrest a modest deterioration in Vietnamese consumer confidence in recent months. Indeed, we note that both assessments of the one-year and five-year economic and financial outlooks for Vietnam have been in a modest decline for three months now,” it said.
In terms of personal finances now, 33% (down one percentage point) of Vietnamese said their family is ‘better off’ financially than a year ago compared to 21% (down one percentage point) who said their families are ‘worse off’ financially.
Of the respondents, 53% (down five percentage points) of Vietnamese expect their families will be ‘better off’ financially this time next year compared to just 6% (up one percentage point) who expect to be ‘worse off’ financially.
Meanwhile, exactly half of respondents (unchanged) say Vietnam will have ‘good times’ financially during the next 12 months and only 14% (down one percentage point) expect ‘bad times’ financially.
In addition, 43% (up three percentage points) of Vietnamese said now is a ‘good time to buy’ major household items (the highest for this indicator since January 2014) compared to 11% (down two percentage points) who said now is a ‘bad time to buy’ major household items.
“We suspect that the ongoing slowdown in China and the interaction of that slowdown with the decline in the international oil price may hold the key to unraveling why Vietnamese consumer confidence appears to be underperforming the pick-up in confidence amongst regional peers,” Maguire said.
It is interesting to note that the large decline in recent oil prices has had less impact on consumer confidence than the deterioration (negative) and subsequent improvement (positive) in relations with China through 2014. This may reflect the fact that the decline in domestic pump prices (down a cumulative 12% since July 2014) has been much smaller than the decline in international oil prices.
Đăng ký: VietNam News
