VNR 500 shows foreign firms strength The VNR500 List for this year that ranks the 500 largest firms in terms of revenue growth was published last week by Vietnam Report and VietnamNet. Samsung Electronics Vietnam - Thai Nguyen The VNR500, which has run annually since 2008, revealed that foreign-invested firms were doing well as they continued to excel on the list which also judged total assets, labour productivity, number of employees and post-tax profits. The top 10 biggest firms included Samsung Electronics Vietnam which sat second behind the state-run PetroVietnam. The total revenue of the top 10 firms reached an estimated VND2.354 trillion. The northern province of Bac Ninh was ranked third, accounting for 10 per cent of the 500 companies’ total revenue thanks to Samsung and Nokia locating factories there. The province was ranked behind Hanoi 45.2 per cent and Ho Chi Minh City 21.4 per cent. Samsung is currently one of the largest foreign investors in Vietnam. Last year, Samsung earned $23.9 billion in revenue from exporting phones produced and assembled in the country, accounting for 18 per cent of Vietnam’s total export revenue. Vietnam, for the first time, has become the world’s manufacturing base for hi-tech devices, with 120 of 400 million Samsung mobile phones sold globally manufactured in Bac Ninh. Together with Samsung’s plant in Thai Nguyen that recently became operational, Vietnam has become one of Samsung’s key global manufacturing bases. Foreign invested firms only accounted for about 16 per cent of the list, but their revenue contributed more than 22 per cent of total revenue of the 500 companies. State-owned enterprises continued to play an important role in Vietnam’s economy with 59.4 percent of revenue of the 500 biggest companies coming from state-owned enterprises. The VNR500 also revealed that the mineral and petrol and oil sectors led in terms of revenue with 32.9 per cent of the total. Electricity came in second with 19 per cent, followed by finance and banking at 10.3 per cent.   Besides VNR500, Vietnam Report also ranked the 500 biggest private enterprises in Vietnam in terms of equity capital. The top 10 biggest private enterprises this year included Doji Gold and Gems Group, Vietnam Dairy Products Joint Stock Company, FPT and Vingroup. Top ten biggest firms in 2014 Source: Vietnam Report By Nguyen Chung, VIR