Vietnam is the number 1 choice for US businesses investing in ASEAN.

According to the latest survey by the Asean Business Outlook Survey (ABOS), Vietnam is the number 1 choice for US businesses wanting to expand operations in ASEAN.

According to ABOS, 40% of US companies operating in ASEAN chose Vietnam as their next destination to expand their operations, compared to 38% of Indonesia. Thus, after two consecutive years of losing the top spot to Indonesia, Vietnam has returned to the number one position. In addition, 34% of US companies chose Myanmar and 30% chose Thailand.

Conducted by the American Chamber of Commerce (Amcham) in Singapore and in collaboration with Amchams in other ASEAN countries, ABOS is the result of a survey of about 500 American business leaders operating in Southeast Asia.

Vietnam is the number 1 choice for US businesses wanting to expand operations in ASEAN (Illustration photo).

Overall, the ABOS results are very encouraging for Vietnam. 80% of US businesses already present in Vietnam said they are planning to expand their operations, and 61% intend to hire more staff this year. 72% of US businesses in Vietnam believe that the investment environment in the country is improving, and 87% believe that their profits will increase in 2017.

In terms of human resource quality, Vietnamese people are also rated quite well. The rate of American businesses in Vietnam having difficulty recruiting personnel with good foreign language skills is only 25%, compared to 46% in Thailand. In particular, Vietnamese accounting and information technology skills seem to be the best in Southeast Asia, with only 3% and 13% of American businesses having difficulty recruiting. This is very impressive compared to similar figures in Singapore of 17% and 42%.

According to Chinhphu.vn