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Company openings up; chartered capital down
Some 40,000 companies got off the ground in the first half of 2009, an increase of 14 percent over the same period last year, but combined charter capital fell by 40 percent.
About VND170 trillion (US$9.94 billion) was put up by the upstarts, most of which looked to take advantage of the government’s four percent interest rate subsidy program.
Local small-and medium-sized enterprises have been provided with the loan interest as part of the national economic stimulus package announced in January.
Local firms with charter capital of up to VND20 billion ($ 1.17 million) and less than 500 employees are eligible for the subsidy program.
In Ho Chi Minh City alone, about 13,500 firms were established in the first six months of 2009. Most of the new businesses are in services, informational technology and real estate.
The new businesses’ charter capital range from VND10 million ($584.62) to VND100 billion ($5.84 million).
“The new businesses were founded right in the period we started applying the national economic stimulus program,” said Dang Xuan Ha, head of the business registration office of the Department of Planning and Investment of Central Highlands Dak Lak Province.
Officials in the Central Highlands provinces of Lam Dong, Gia Lai and Kontum also reported an increased number of new limited companies, most of which were originally family businesses.
Most of the new firms are in farm produce processing, fertilizer production and machinery for agricultural productions, according to the Kon Tum Province Department of Planning and Investment.
Market observers said the downturn is presenting both new challenges and opportunities for domestic businesses.
The three-month-old real estate agency Houselink Co., Ltd was founded by a group of five friends who are still in their twenties and thirties.
“Understanding our strength and our customers’ demand, we decided to focus on finding rental properties for expatriates in Vietnam,” Houselink director Tran Thien Trang told Tuoi Tre newspaper.
“Demand in this segment is not small,” she said. “It is often overlooked by major enterprises and foreign tenants don’t want to hire individual real estate agents for fear of the potential risks.”
“With an emerging economy like Vietnam, it would be strange if a businessman can’t find any business opportunity in the country,” Dr. Nguyen Dinh Cung, deputy head of the Central Institute for Economic Management said.
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