VietNamNet Bridge – The number of Vietnamese businesses have been decreasing sharply in recent years, according to official reports by state management agencies.

The General Statistics Office (GSO) on January 4, 2013, released a report showing that Vietnam had had 313,000 operational businesses by January 1, 2012.

Meanwhile, a report by the Ministry of Planning and Investment submitted to the second session of the National Assembly, said that by the end of 2011 there had been 624,000 enterprises registering their business.

As such, the number of operational businesses had halved from 624,000 to 313,000 by the end of 2011, or one year ago, if referring to the reports of the two state management agencies which are believed to have most reliable statistics about enterprises.

However, GSO’s General Director Do Thuc warned that the figures about businesses may differ at different times.

However, Thuc could not explain why there was such a big difference in the number of enterprises which still keep operation and the number of registered enterprises during the same period.

Meanwhile, the noteworthy thing is that the two figures were released by the same agency. GSO is an arm of the Ministry of Planning and Investment.

As such, the disappearance of a half of Vietnamese businesses has not found reliable answers.

Luu Quang Manh, Head of the Business Registration Management Agency under the Ministry of Planning and Investment, said Vietnam should have had 363.000 operational businesses by January 1, 2012, instead of 313,000 as announced by GSO.

Manh explained that up to 50,000 businesses “seemed to be operational by that time,” though they did not answer state management agencies, or refused to meet the surveyors from GSO.

Also according to Manh, by the end of 2012, it is estimated that Vietnam had had 475,000 businesses nationwide, if noting that it had had 363,000 businesses by the end of 2011.

In 2012, up to 110,000 businesses joined the market, including 70,000 newly registered businesses, 22,500 prepared to start their production and the other 21,000 businesses which is the error of the three ministries of planning and investment, GSO and the General Department of Taxation.

If referring to the above said survey by GSO, the number of existing enterprises is higher than 313,000, about 342,000, or 2.7 times higher than that of 2007 (125,000). The businesses attract 10.9 million workers, an increase of 65 percent (4.3 million workers) from the 6.6 million in 2007.

According to the HCM City Statistics Office, in 2012, the city had 23,708 newly set up businesses, down by 2.5 percent in comparison with 2011. Meanwhile, 21,746 businesses halted or stopped operation in the first 11 months of 2012, amounting to 96.2 percent of the new businesses granted tax codes. Of these, 41 percent of businesses have locked the tax codes or were waiting for tax codes, and 29.8 percent did not have business offices.

In Hanoi, 15,000 new businesses were set up in 2012 with the registered capital of VND83 trillion, which are equal to 90 percent and 70 percent, respectively, of the figures in 2011.The Hanoi Statistics Office did not figure out the number of shut down businesses. However, the city’s taxation body said that by the end of November 12,249 businesses had stopped operation.

US$1=VND21,000

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