More than 5,000 businesses became operational again in the first quarterof this year, posting a 10 percent year-on-year increase.

Thisshowed that the economy had recovered and presented investment andtrading opportunities for firms in difficulty, the General StatisticsOffice (GSO) said.

During the three-month period, Viet Nam sawover 19,000 newly-established enterprises starting business, with atotal investment of 111.2 trillion VND (5.19 billion USD), up 4 percentand 13.5 percent in terms of their count and registered capital,respectively.

The GSO's data also revealed that in March, 5,238new firms were established, with a total registered capital of 33.7trillion VND (1.57 billion USD), representing a 23 percent year-on-yearslump.

The reason for this was that the last month of the quarterfell after the Tet holiday period, which did not see many new businessactivities and was marked by low demand due to a high inventory, the GSOsaid.

The average registered capital for each company was 5.8 billion VND (271 million USD) in March.

These businesses employed 265,000 labourers, 3.6 percent higher than the previous month.

Theentertainment sector posted a higher growth in newly registered capitalwith a 12 percent increase; the property trading sector grew 48 percentand agro-forestry and fisheries reported a 36 percent jump in growth.

In the period, more than 16,000 businesses were either dissolved or suspended operations, increasing 14 percent from a year ago.

Most of the businesses were small-scale firms, with a charter capital of less than 10 billion VND (467,000 USD).

Of these, over 2,500 firms were completely dissolved, reflecting a 0.6 percent year-on-year decrease.-VNA