FDI firms are leading domestic firms in VIentam on return on assets by 2.5 percentage points and return on equity by 4.9 percent, according to the PROFIT500 rankings released earlier this week.
Whereas these differences are marginal, it’s worth noting that the key local companies making the top of the list are in banking and petrol and gas, all of which are conditional business lines for foreign investment–the point being that its not exactly comparing apples to oranges in the sense that FDI is generally in sectors with lower profit margins, manufacturing for example. In this context, the difference between foreign and domestic firms, all things being equal, would likely be even higher.