Footwear products were manufactured at Binh Tan Consumer Goods Manufacturing Company in HCM City. The country's industrial production rose by nearly 10 per cent in the first 10 months of the year. — VNA/VNS Photo An Hieu

HA NOI (Biz Hub) — The Index of Industrial Production (IIP) posted a growth of nearly 10 per cent in the first ten months of 2015 driven by the Government's efforts in improving macro-economic situations.

According to the General Statistics Office, IIP was regaining its growth rate recorded in the seven-month period this year, compared with the growth rate of 6.9 per cent recorded in the same period last year.

The processing and manufacturing industry, which accounted for more than 80 per cent of the country's industrial production, rose by 10 per cent, contributing 6.8 percentage points to the overall growth.

Many products registered considerable growth, including automobiles, televisions, mobile phones, and footwear products, in addition to milk and powder products, power, cement and crude oil. However, motorcycle, raw steel, urea fertilisers and synthetic fabrics were among products which posted declines in production during the period.

Among 63 provinces and cities, Thai Nguyen Province led in industrial production with the IIP jumping 121.9 per cent over the same period last year.

This also led to a rising recruitment demand with the number of labourers working in industrial production in the northern province up by more than 50 per cent, the highest growth rate among provinces and cities of large industrial production scales.

The GSO statistics also revealed that in the ten-month period, there were more than 77,500 newly-established firms with a total registered capital of VND486.1 trillion (US$21.6 billion), rising by 29.2 per cent and 37.9 per cent over the same period last year, respectively.

Together with a sum of VND737.8 trillion ($32.8 billion) in increased capitals of existing businesses, a total of VND1.223 quadrillion ($54.4 billion) was poured into the economy in the first ten months of this year.

The period also saw the resumption of operations of 3,350 firms in October alone, a hefty rise of 121.1 per cent against the previous month. For the ten-month period, more than 16,190 firms resumed operations, up 24.6 per cent.

GSO said macro-economic improvements coupled with the Government's efforts and solutions in improving business climate helped prop up difficulty-hit firms.

However, there still existed problems that needed to be tackled as the number of firms forced to temporarily halt operations or dissolve reaching nearly 68,000, equivalent to the number in the entire 2014. — VNS