On February 14th 2023, CanCham Vietnam successfully held Crystal Ball 2023 - The Year Ahead with 160 participants and registers gathering at Intercontinental Saigon Hotel to discuss the future of some specific fields in 2023.
For our Business Luncheon this year, we were honoured to welcome Mr. Behzad Babakhani - Consul General of Canada on stage to give his opinion and viewpoint on Canada's Indo-Pacific strategy.
During the luncheon, our 6 speakers shared their understanding of their specialized major and made predictions for the upcoming year base on the data and their experience.
🎤 Mr. Alex Crane - Real Estate updates, regarding the predictions for this area, Alex mentions some aspects like HCMC condominium price to undergo correction; Vietnam industrial pricing is becoming expensive; Office market to be TENANT-favourable; and From Macroeconomic Fundamentals to Sector’s Specific. At the end of his speech, he talked about Macroeconomic Fundamentals like Government will continue stabilization of the banking sector, control of lending into real estate (which we approve) or Continued pressure on developers’ projects, which will slow supply in all sectors.
🎤 Mr. Binh Tran - Technology updates, he provided some upcoming trends in Education, Health, Blockchain, Green Tech, Fintech, and Artificial Intelligence. In general, there will be a rise in applying high technology in those fields. In detail, for Education: Growing demand for household spending, educational content .. and more services offered; Health: Underserved market with great potential, Preventive measures, Management systems, Information sharing and some challenges; Green Tech: Will continue to grow as more people become aware of sustainable practices; Blockchain: Government actively explore ways to leverage blockchain technologies; Fintech: One of the most prominent sectors in the ecosystems (2/4 tech unicorns); The Era of Generative AI: Technologies and strategies of yesterday won’t be enough for the realities of tomorrow.
🎤 Mr. Ismael Pili - Stock Market updates, his presentation impressed the participants with What we got right & What we got wrong in Our Forecasts At The Start Of 2022 followed by the 2023 Outlook. We believe the VNI will finish higher than 2022’s 1,007 level. He thinks the bear market in Vietnam will end in 2023, notwithstanding slower global economic and domestic growth. Predicting for 2023, Ismael mentioned some factors such as Risks To The Market, Market Performance, Sector Performance, Value Remains, VinaCapital Estimates Are Higher Than Consensus, Net Profit Growth To Be Led by Last Year’s Laggards, Foreign Institutional Investor Buying, Average Daily Turnover (ADT) and a question: History set to repeat itself?
🎤 Mr. Ralf Matthaes - Consumer Trends updates, Ralf claimed that the Trend will be partly uncertain due to COVID-19 Pandemic has affected many aspects of consumers' lives. Though more are optimistic than not, over a quarter see the economy as being worse in 2023 than last year. Consumer confidence has dropped somewhat since July 2022, Indicating uncertainty in the market, fueled by the Real estate bubble burst, high inflation and many of the more traditional routes to money being negatively impacted. As a result, the sources and purpose of Loans also have some changes, which affect purchase behaviour. Furthermore, Ralf introduced about 4 Emerging Meta Trends: Online Amplification, Consumption Growth - Decline, Land Grab Purchase Intent and Retail Landscape Shifts.
🎤 Mr. Will Ross - Economic updates, he had an interesting comparison between Vietnam amidst geopolitical uncertainty and The Eye of the Hurricane and then linked it to the Overview of Vietnam's Economy. This part includes a Stable Growth Economy, Exports and Supply Chain Shifts, Middle-Class formation, Recovery of Tourism and Infrastructure Spending. He also provided audiences with Macro Highlights of Vietnam's Economy in both recent years and the next year. Recently, some highlighted numbers were illustrated like GDP Growth of 8.0% or FDI Disbursement of $22.4bn. Regarding forecasts for 2023, in general, Vietnam's Economy will gain optimum results.
🎤 Ms. Sarah Galeski - Legal updates, her speech includes 2 parts: The Introduction of Independent Trade Unions and Significant obligations in respect of handling personal data. Especially, Personal Data Protection Obligations are emphasized because of their importance and danger. Now, may be no need to obtain approval from the PDPC. The sender and recipient may reach an agreement. The required contents of this agreement are not presently available, but the agreement would likely need to address the responsibilities of data controllers and data processors in protecting personal data, and allocating liability between these parties in the event of a breach.
The luncheon wrapped up with a Q&A Panel Discussion between the 6 speakers wrapped up with a forecast for 2023 with the participation of our Crystal Ball's attendees.
We would also like to thank our event sponsor and in-kind sponsors for their amazing support
In-kind Sponsors: Rada Vietnam, Natural World Trading and Phintify;
Cash Sponsor: Manulife
and Co-hosts: AmCham, AusCham, BeluxCham, CEEC, CTCVN, HKBAV, MBC, SingCham and InCham.
Special thanks to : Sang Nguyen Corporate Photography for the lovely pictures.
See the Full Album of Crystal Ball 2023 taken by Sang Nguyen Corporate Photography at: https://crystal-ball-2023.canchamvietnam.org/