VINACHEM

More than 20,000 businesses ceased operations in the first three months of this year, a 24 percent year-on-year increase, according to official figures.

Of them, around 8,000 have registered for temporary suspension while 12,000 others either have been waiting to have their business codes closed or failed to complete procedures for temporary suspension registration, according to a General Statistics Office (GSO) report released on Friday.

More than 2,900 businesses completed dissolution procedures, up 14 percent from the same period last year. Most of them were small-sized with registered capital of less than VND10 billion (US$446,000).

The first quarter has also seen the establishment of 23,700 new businesses, up 25 percent, according to GSO. Their registered capital increased 67 percent year-on-year to VND186 trillion ($8.3 billion).

The GSO said the country’s gross domestic product rose only 5.46 percent in the first quarter of this year compared with 6.12% of the same period last year and 5.9% of 2014.

GSO Director General Nguyen Bich Lam said there were signs of GDP stagnation in Q1 although it is the first quarter to implement the country's socio-economic development plan for 2016 – 2020.

The increase in the value of the agro-forestry-fisheries sectors is equivalent to only 98.77 percent of that in 2015 and the lowest rate from those of the same periods in recent years, he told a press conference in Hanoi on Friday.

Rice output in the Mekong Delta – the rice hub of Vietnam – dropped by 6.2 percent, or about 700,000 tons, in the first three months due to severe drought and saltwater intrusion.

The value of the industrial and construction industries rose by only 6.72 percent, compared to 8.74 percent recorded in Q1 last year, Lam noted.