Business environment improves progressively

It is expected that about 85,000 businesses will be established by the end of this year, a 13.6 percent increase from 2014

In the first 10 months of this year, 77,542 new businesses were established with total registered capital of VND486.1 trillion, a 29.2 percent increase in terms of quantity and a 37.9 percent increase in terms of registered capital against a year ago. Total newly registered capital reached VND486.1 trillion and total supplementary capital reached almost VND737.8 trillion during this period.

Average registered capital reached VND6.2 billion per business, a 2.3 percent increase from a year ago. Newly-established businesses created 999,253 jobs, a 25.7 percent increase from the same months last year. As many as 12,848 businesses resumed operations, an 8.2 percent increase compared with 5.1 percent in the same period last year.

According to the Ministry of Planning and Investment’s General Statistical Office, the sharp increase in the number and scale of newly-established businesses and the number of old businesses returning to the market showed that the business environment had improved significantly. The amended Enterprise Law and Investment Law, together with governmental policies to improve the business environment, have raised confidence among the business community.

According to the Ministry of Planning and Investment’s Business Registration Authority, of total 6,962 dissolved businesses, 6,508 businesses or 93.5 percent had small capital from VND0-10 billion; 183 businesses had VND10-20 billion; 123 businesses had VND20-50 billion; and 69 businesses had VND50-100 billion.

The number of businesses temporarily halting operations also increased by 29.1 percent in the first 10 months of this year, reaching 60,164. More than 93 percent of these businesses had capital of less than VND10 billion.

At the September meeting of the Ministry of Planning and Investment, representatives of several provinces and cities said that small-sized businesses were facing difficulties, largely due to poor capital, insufficient investment in technology and low efficiency of medium to small-sized enterprise support policies.

Central Institute for Economic Management Director Nguyen Dinh Cung said that to better help medium to small-sized enterprises, it was necessary to continue improving the business environment following Prime Ministerial Resolution 19/2015/NQ-CP.

Specifically, ministries and localities need to continue improving the business environment, boosting administrative reforms and modifying existing regulations on business conditions and management of goods and import and export services. It is expected that the Vietnamese business environment will exceed the average index for ASEAN+6 by 2015 and ASEAN+4 by 2016.

Nguyen Hoa