According to a recently-conducted survey by the General Statistics Office of Vietnam (GSO) on business trends of manufacturing and processing enterprises in the first quarter of 2018, 48.2% of firms stated that the trend would be better, while 16.1% of them forecast more difficulties and 35.7% said that their production and business situation will stabilise compared to the fourth quarter of 2017.
GSO also pointed out that in terms of production volume for Q1 2018, 49.2% of enterprises forecast increased production volume; 14.9% of businesses predict a reduction and 35.9% of them forecast stable situation compared with the last quarter.
Regarding orders, the trend for the first quarter in 2018 has improved more than the previous quarter, with 43.6% of enterprises expected to have orders increase; 14.9% of them plan to reduce orders and 41.5% of businesses to have stability in orders.
For export orders, 35.8% of enterprises forecast to have increased export orders; 14% of them are expected a decrease and 50.2% to have stable a situation compared to Q4 2017.
The GSO also said that in 2017, there were 126,859 newly-established enterprises registered nationwide with a total registered capital of nearly VND1.3 trillion, up 15% in the number and 45% in capital volume compared to 2016. The average registered capital of each newly established enterprise was at VND10 billion, an increase of 26%. Including the VND1.9 trillion of more than 35,000 businesses that increased their capital, the total registered capital added to the economy in 2017 was at nearly VND3.2 trillion.
In addition, 26,448 enterprises returned to operation, down 0.9% over the previous year, bringing the total number of newly-registered enterprises and enterprises back to operation in 2017 to approximately 153,300. The total number of registered employees of newly-established enterprises in 2017 was at 1.2 million, a decrease of 8.4% compared to 2016.
In 2017, 45,400 new enterprises were established in the wholesale and retail sector (accounting for 35% of total newly-established enterprises), up 16% over the previous year; 16,000 was established in industrial processing (12%), up 9%; 16,000 in construction (12%), up 10.6%; and 9,400 in other professional services (accounting for 7.4%), up 11%.
The number of enterprises halted operation in 2017 was 60,553, down 0.2% against the previous year. Together with that, the number of enterprises completing procedures of dissolution in 2017 was 12,113 enterprises, down 2.9% since the previous year; among them, 11,087 enterprises have capital of less than VND10 billion, accounting for 91%.
