Some 87,448 new enterprises were established in the first eight months of the year, with total registered capital of VND878.6 trillion (US$37.7 billion), a year-on-year increase of 2.4 per cent in number of firms and 6.9 per cent in capital, according to the General Statistics Office (GSO).

In August, the country had 11,655 newly-established firms with total registered capital of VND107.6 trillion ($4.62 billion), posting a 3.5 per cent increase in the number of companies and a 11.9 percent drop in terms of capital compared to the previous month.

The average registered capital of each new firm was calculated at more than VND10 billion ($430,000), rising 4.3 per cent from the same time last year. During January-August, there were 20,942 businesses resuming their operations, growing 9.3 per cent year on year.

The new firms employed 734,700 workers, falling 10.7 per cent from the same time last year. The wholesale, retail and automobile repair and motorbike industries had the most newly formed companies with 29,600, or 33 per cent of the total new firms. These were followed by construction and processing-manufacturing sectors which saw the participation of 11,500 and 10,900 companies, respectively.

The GSO said that as many as 63,235 businesses stopped operations during the eight-month period, up 38.1 per cent year-on-year. The number of enterprises fulfilling dissolution procedures rose 17.8 per cent to 9,135. — VNS