VietNamNet Brige – The rapid increase of the Vietnamese income and the strong rise of the middle class explains why most of the big guys in the world want to sell their goods to Vietnam.

Boston Consulting Group (BCG) has released a survey, saying that Vietnam is getting richer thanks to the strong rise of the middle class in the society.

BCG believes that Vietnam would have 30 million middle-class and rich consumers by 2020. Meanwhile, the Vietnamese middle class people prove to be more optimistic than in China, Indonesia, India and some other emerging countries.

Up to 90 percent of Vietnamese consumers believe that their children and grandchildren would have better lives in the future. Meanwhile, only 70 percent of Chinese, Indian and Indonesian think so.

Measuring the optimism of Vietnamese businesses--Vietnam Report, a credit rating firm, which releases the annual list of the Vietnamese 500 biggest enterprises (VNR 500), has found out that 83.6 percent of CEOs think their business performance would be better in 2014.

The low percentage of pessimistic predictions about the national economy in 2014 showed that Vietnamese businessmen have regained confidence after four years of staying pessimistic.

In recent years, Vietnam has attracted a lot of foreign invested projects in different business fields. In electronics manufacturing, South Korean Samsung has set up a $2 billion factory in Thai Nguyen province, while LG has set up a $1.5 billion factory in Hai Phong City.

In food processing, Nestle has inaugurated its coffee processing factory capitalized at $240 million, which would make out the products to serve the demand in South East Asia.

In fast food and beverage, the Vietnamese market has gathered nearly all the big guys in the world, from KFC, Starbucks to Pizza Hut, Burger King.

Most recently, McDonald’s has announced its official presence in Vietnam with the plan to set up the first shop in HCM City. The appearance of the US big guy in Vietnam shows that the Vietnamese market is big enough for the giant to exploit after many years of eyeing and surveying.

According to BCG, the good balance between the exports and investment capital has helped Vietnam obtain the stable growth. The Vietnamese income per capita is expected to increase to $3,000 by 2020.

Douglas Jackson, Managing Director of BCG in HCM City, noted that the foreign companies in Vietnam now have the big opportunities to build up their business plans and develop brands. But their successes would depend on how well they understand the Vietnamese customers.

Middle class people not only reside in Hanoi and HCM City, but in other cities and provinces as well. About 51 percent of consumers and 80 percent of middle class and rich consumers buy goods at supermarkets and hypermarkets. Despite the global economic crisis, 70 percent of Vietnamese consumers still believe the situation is improving.

Vietnamese now have good financial capability and have high demand for goods. 80 percent of surveyed consumers said they want to buy more goods in 2014, willing to make payment with credit cards.

According to Phu Huynh, a senior expert of ILO, Vietnam can hope that the rise of the middle class in the labor force will play a very important role to help recover the Vietnamese dynamic economy.

The current Vietnamese income per capita is $1,960, as stated by the Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung at the Vietnam Development Partnership Forum in 2013.

He has affirmed that Vietnam’s public debts will be within the safety line in 2014, 2015, 2016; not higher than 65 percent of GDP.

Compiled by K. Chi