Vietnam had around 505,000 operational enterprises though the number officially registered was one million as of early last year, according to the General Statistics Office (GSO).

The HCMC business registration office is crowded with people. Vietnam had around 505,000 operational enterprises as of early last year 

At a news briefing in Hanoi City last Friday, GSO released preliminary results of the 2017 general economic census.

A report on the census shows that the country had around 518,000 operational enterprises as of early last year, with 12,800 of them in the investment phase and 505,000 in operation. However, the number of formally registered enterprises was over one million.

The private sector had the largest number of enterprises, at around 500,000, up a staggering 52.2% compared to 2012, and saw annual growth in the number of enterprises, at 8.7%, according to GSO.

As many as 14,600 enterprises were in the foreign direct investment (FDI) sector, up a whopping 54.2% against 2012 and up 9.2% annually in the number of enterprises.

Meanwhile, the number of operational State-owned enterprises was only 2,701, down 18.3% over 2012, thanks to the Government’s effort to restructure the State corporate sector over the past few years.

The country had more than 13,500 co-operatives and 5.1 million production and business facilities, creating jobs for 206,600, down 15% against 2012, and 8.7 million, up 9%, respectively.

SGT