In Vietnam, businesses come and go in the blink of an eye.
While the rise and fall of the country's many small businesses is not news itself, the first three months of 2016 have seen an uptick in both the number of new businesses and also those which have closed their doors, reports Thanh Nien.
According to a report released by the General Statistics Office last week, 20,044 businesses have suspended operations since the start of this year, a 23.9% year-on-year increase from 2015. Of those businesses, 8,026 firms formally suspended their operations while the remaining 12,018 enterprises were either in the process of registering for temporary suspension or were unregistered altogether.
An additional 2,900-plus businesses also completed dissolution procedures, according to Thanh Nien, a 14% increase from last year.
While this sounds bleak, it's also worth noting the roughly 23,700 new businesses which were established since the start of 2016, a 25% increase from 2015.
As a result of these challenges, Vietnam's gross domestic product (GDP) growth remains lower than last year, coming in at 5.46% in the first three months of 2016. While the Asian Development Bank predicts Vietnam will reach 6.7% GDP growth by the end of the year, the national economy certainly has some difficulties to overcome, including the country's increasing number of business closures and, you know, the natural disaster happening to the west.
[Photo via Flickr user ILO in Asia and the Pacific]
