Domestic consumer confidence reaches a record high in December.  —  VNS  Photo Doan Tung

December's mark is a record high for Vietnamese Consumer Confidence, which finishes 2015 as the country with the highest consumer confidence in Asia for the first time.

Vietnamese Consumer Confidence is now well above its two-year average of 136.6, and is now 9.2 points above its figure in December last year.

ANZ Bank said in a report on December 23 that the rise was driven by improving confidence in the domestic economy over the next 12 months and five years.

Thirty-five per cent (up one percentage point) of the Vietnamese respondents said their families are better off financially than this time last year, while 14 per cent (up three percentage points) said their families are worse off.

Fifty-nine per cent (up three percentage points) expect their families to be better off financially this time next year, while four per cent (up one percentage point) expect to be worse off.

As concerns the overall economy, 61 per cent (up six percentage points) expect Viet Nam to have good times financially during the next 12 months, while nine per cent, which is unchanged, expect bad times.

Sixty-six per cent (up seven percentage points) expect the country to experience good times economically over the next five years, while five per cent (up one percentage point) expect bad times economically.

Forty-five per cent (up three percentage points) believed now was a good time to buy high-cost household items, compared to 10 per cent (up two percentage points) which felt it was not.

"Viet Nam's economic outperformance from both an external and now a likely domestic perspective is confirmed," Glenn Maguire, the chief economist of ANZ Bank in South Asia, ASEAN and the Pacific said.

"Our final reading of the Viet Nam consumer confidence index leaves us in no doubt that the country will be one of Asia's outperforming economies in the period 2016 to 2017," he said. — VNS