Research Center

The prelim export turnover of Vietnam’s textile and garment dropped 37% yoy and 22.4% mom to USD2.3bn in Jan. The export to the US (the largest textile and garment export market of Vietnam) in Jan fell 46.4% yoy and 21.5% mom to USD992mn. Meanwhile, Vietnam’s fiber and yarn export value slid 52.4% yoy and 30.7% mom to USD226mn in January with China, the largest fiber and yarn importer of Vietnam, recorded USD87mn (-58.5% yoy/-38.9% mom).

As ENSO is forecast to enter neutral phase in 2023, thermal power is a perfect alternative for shrinking hydropower output. We pick NT2 as our favorite due to expectation of decent results. On 7 Jan, MOIT issued framework for prices of transitional renewable energy projects which are much lower than previous FiT prices.

The income of Vietnam workers was impacted by still sluggish export activities, thus we expect consumption of beer and dairy will continue to face the challenge in 1Q23F. However, we expect continuously the gross margins of listed dairy and beer companies to improve in 1Q23F due to enjoying cooling raw material prices. For sugar sector, we expect sales could grow up and improve gross margin due to higher selling prices.

The industry posted a VND12,048bn revenue (+7.1% yoy, +5,7% qoq) and a VND842bn NPAT (+6.0% yoy, +13.5% qoq) in 4Q22. The 4Q22 aggregated blended gross margin (GM) was 25% (+2.1%p yoy, +0.1%p qoq), while the net margin (NM) nearly stayed the same as 4Q21 with 7.2% (+0.2%p yoy, -0.2%p qoq).

According to the GSO estimate, in Jan, the total agriculture export value was more than USD1.5bn (-10% mom, -8% yoy). Coffee brought the highest value of USD352mn (+12% mom, -5% yoy), and it accounted for 23% of total agriculture export turnover, followed by vegetables (19%) and rubber (17%).

Based on our estimate, the fertilizer industry announced a VND26,023bn revenue (-9% yoy, -2% qoq) and a VND3,883bn NPAT (-21% yoy, -8% qoq) in 4Q22. 4Q22 blended gross margin (GM) lowered by 3.4%p yoy to 25.7% in 4Q22 (+0.8%p qoq), while the net margin (NM) shrank to 15% (-1.5%p yoy, -0.7%p qoq), regardless the SG&A to sales narrowed by 1.1%p yoy to 9.3% (+1.9% qoq).

This quarterly earnings report on Vietnam steel production is intended to track the earning growth trend in the steel market. We witnessed a collapse in aggregated gross margin (into negative territory in 4Q22), which mainly caused by the GM collapse of HPG. In 1Q23F, we expect to see the gross margin will improve in 1Q23F when the pressure from high-cost inventories have been away.

According to GSO estimate, crude oil exploitation in Jan decreased slightly to 713,000 tonnes (-7.1% mom, -3.7% yoy). Meanwhile, crude oil export and import volume went down strongly mom but increased yoy to 200,000 tonnes (-33.3% mom, +11.1% yoy), and 1.0 mn tonnes (-28.6% mom, +42.9% yoy), respectively. Petroleum import volume and value went up strongly yoy to 1.0 mn tonnes (-16.7% mom, +51.5% yoy) and USD879mn (-20.6% mom, +87.2% yoy), respectively.

This monthly report on Vietnam steel production is intended to track the developments in the steel market. During Dec 22, we observed a continuing m-o-m improvement in sales volume.