Number of new businesses rise despite Covid-19

By Dat Nguyen August 30, 2020 | 09:45 pm PT

A worker examines steel rolls at a factory in southern An Giang Province. Photo by VnExpress/Phuong Dong.

Around 13,400 new businesses were registered in August, up 1.5 percent from July, despite the country’s ongoing fight against Covid-19.

The average registered capital rose by 19 percent against the previous month, and 59 percent from a year earlier, to VND21.6 billion ($932,000), according to the General Statistics Office.

The resurgence of the Covid-19 epidemic at the end of July has not cratered business sentiment, it assured.

The number of businesses in the year to date was 88,700, down 2 percent.

Their combined investment was 1.2 quadrillion ($51.8 billion), up 6.5 percent, but the number of people they hired fell 16.5 percent to 694,900.

Two-thirds of the businesses are in the service sector, and there were a rising number of companies in power, technology and design.

The number of companies suspending business in the first eight months was 70.8 percent up at nearly 34,300.

Last year there were a record 138,100 newly registered businesses.