Vietnam's economy recorded many positive signals in the first two months of the year

More than 18,000 businesses established

According to a report on the implementation of Resolution 01/NQ-CP, the socio-economic situation in February and in the first two months of 2021, Minister Nguyen Chi Dung said though the Covid-19 pandemic in February developed complicatedly, coinciding with the Lunar New Year, the socio-economic situation in February 2021 remained positive with many bright spots.

Accordingly, the macro-economy has been maintained stably. Money and credit markets before, during and after the Lunar New Year were stable. Third, it was influenced by the Lunar New Year holiday; business registration continues to change positively. Statistics of the General Statistics Office show the number of newly established enterprises in February 2021 fell compared to the previous month and the same period last year, as February coincided with the Lunar New Year.

However, registered capital in February increased by 15.9% from the previous month and by 85.6% over the same period last year and the number of enterprises registered to suspend business with a definite time decreased 80.1% and decreased 21.3%. The number of firms suspending their business and waiting for dissolution procedures fell by 53.5% and by 32.2%. These are positive signals in the context that the Covid-19 pandemic still has many complex developments, significantly affecting the production and business activities of enterprises.

In the first two months of 2021, the country had 18.1 thousand newly registered enterprises with total registered capital of VND 334.8 trillion and the total number of registered employees was 172.8 thousand employees, up 4% in number of enterprises, increase 52.2% in registered capital and increase 9.7% in number of employees from the same period last year.

In addition, more than 11 thousand enterprises returned to operation, decreasing by 7.6% from the same period last year, bringing the total number of newly established enterprises back to operation in the two months of 2021 to 29.2 thousand enterprises, on average, there are 14.6 thousand newly established enterprises and come back to operation each month.

In the first two months of 2021, export turnover was estimated at US$ 48.55 billion, up 23.2% from the same period last year. Source: Internet

Export continues to "go upstream"

Total foreign investment capital in Vietnam as of February 20, including newly registered capital, adjusted registered capital and value of capital contribution and share purchases by foreign investors reached $5.46 billion, down 15.6% over the same period in 2020, in which, 126 projects were newly licensed with registered capital of $3.31 billion, down 74.8% in the number of projects and 33.9% on the registered capital compared to the same period of the previous year; 115 projects were licensed from previous years registered to adjust their investment capital with an additional capital of $1.61 billion, up 151.8%. FDI capital in two months was estimated at $2.5 billion, up 2% over the same period last year.

The next bright spot was goods import and export activities in the first two months of the year achieving impressive results with an estimated export turnover of $48.55 billion, up 23.2% from the same period last year, in which the domestic economic sector gained $11.48 billion, increasing by 4.4%, accounting for 23.6% of total export turnover; foreign investment sector (including crude oil) reached $37.07 billion, up 30.5%, accounting for 76.4%. In two months, there were nine items with export turnover of more than $1 billion, accounting for 73.8% of total export turnover.

It is estimated that in February 2021, import turnover of goods reached $ 20.8 billion, down 21.4% from the previous month and up 10.5% over the same period last year. In the first two months of 2021, import turnover was estimated at $47.26 billion, up 25.9% over the same period last year, in which the domestic economic sector reached $15.62 billion, increasing 16%; the foreign invested sector reached $31.64 billion, up 31.4%. In two months, there were 11 items with an import turnover of more than $1 billion, accounting for 67.6% of total import turnover.

In addition, VND 23.48 trillion of the investment capital plan from the State budget in 2021 has been disbursed, reaching 5.09% of the plan assigned by the Prime Minister, reaching 6.2% of the capital of ministries, central agencies and the locality has allocated and assigned details to the projects. This is a remarkable disbursement rate in the context of the first year of implementing the five-year plan for 2021-2025, coinciding with the Tet holiday period and the outbreak of Covid-19, which significantly affected construction progress.

According to the Ministry of Planning and Investment, innovation, science and technology application and digital transformation have positive changes. UNCTAD's Business-to-Customer E-Commerce Index (B2C) in 2020 continues to rank Vietnam among the top 10 economies in East Asia, South Asia and Southeast Asia.

At the same time, the balance of central and local budgets has been guaranteed, State budget revenue in two months reached 21.3% of the estimate, up 0.6% and total State budget expenditure in two months hit 12.3% of the estimate.