Sales at the drugmaker, which is partially-owned by Citigroup Global Markets Ltd. and Citigroup Global Markets Financial Products Ltd., grew 19 percent to VND1.5 trillion, the statement said.

PetroVietnam Drilling and Well Services Joint Stock Co. (PVD), the third-biggest company on Vietnam’s main stock exchange, said profit rose 63 percent last year as its oil rigs operated at full capacity.

“We made full use of our two oil rigs, PV Drilling I and PV Drilling II, and so increased their operational efficiency last year,” said Do Van Khanh, chief executive officer at the company, which provides services to the oil and gas industry in Vietnam.

Net profits at the company rose to about VND930 billion ($53 million), from VND572 billion in 2007, said Khanh.

Revenue exceeded VND3 trillion, compared with VND2.7 trillion a year earlier, he said.

The HCMC -based company forecast earnings would drop this year as oil prices fall, Khanh said, declining to specify a value.

Seafood Joint Stock Co. No. 1 (SJ1), a seafood processor and trader, said profit surged 46 percent last year as exports increased and it planned to expand operations and add workers.

Net profit gained to VND9.5 billion ($543,500), compared with VND6.5 billion in 2007, and sales climbed 13 percent to VND164 billion, Deputy General Director Nguyen Ngoc Trung said.

“Orders for our products are still coming and we are actually hiring more workers,” Trung said.

Food demand may prove resilient during the global recession as “people have to eat, even in times of crisis,” according to a January 19 report from Commerzbank AG.

Domestic seafood companies should export “as much as possible” to help counter the slump, Minister of Agriculture Cao Duc Phat said January 16.

The company planned to build a new factory this year and was targeting pretax profit of VND8 billion on sales of VND170 billion in 2009, Trung said.

But Sacombank Securities Inc. Chief of Research Department Le Ba Hoang Quang said investors didn’t fully believe in the accuracy of the financial reports that had been released.

“They [investors] also expect the economic slowdown to worsen in the first two quarters. The VN-Index will see a downtrend in coming months as liquidity is very limited now,” Quang said.

Average daily turnover on the HCMC exchange has been 7.85 million shares so far this year, compared with the daily 2008 average of 11.8 million.

“There is still a lack of transparency on earning results recently announced by many Vietnamese enterprises. Investors are feeling uneasy about the gloomy outlook of the global and domestic economy,” said Nguyen Xuan Minh, chief executive of HCMC-based Vietnam Asset Management Ltd.

“Companies may also not have disclosed their bad debts, precise provisions on high-cost inventories, receivables and losses from investments which are not their core business.

“These make it difficult for investors to evaluate whether the earnings results are, or will be, real. These issues should be duly addressed to restore investors’ confidence and sentiment.”

VN-Index, the country’s main stock index, gained 2.09 points, or 0.7 percent, to close at 303.21 on January 23 before closing on the next day for Lunar New Year. The benchmark index lost 66 percent last year.