A recent survey found that the number of enterprises in Vietnam annually increased 27.9 percent on average between 2000 and 2005, local newspaper Vietnam News reported Thursday.

The survey by the country's General Statistics Office and the World Bank followed the progress of state-owned enterprises (SOEs), non-state firms and foreign-invested businesses in a five-year period.

It showed that the total revenue of companies grew 28.7 percent annually, but business efficiency was revealed to decline. The ratio of profit to capital stood at 4.42 percent in 2005, compared to 4.85 percent in 2004.

The number of SOEs decreased in the five years to 4,086 in 2005 from 5,759 in 2000. The size of SOEs, however, expanded. The average number of employees per enterprise rose to 499 in 2005 from 363 in 2000.

The number of non-state firms grew rapidly to 105,569 in 2005 from 35,004 in 2000, and that of foreign-invested enterprises to 3, 697 in 2005 from 1,525 in 2000.

The survey revealed that, by 2005, as many as 96.8 percent of companies in Vietnam were small- and medium-sized enterprises (SME) , 42 percent of which controlled less than 1 billion Vietnamese dong (VND) (62,500 U.S. dollars). A SME is defined as an enterprise with up to 10 billion VND (625,000 dollars) in capital and up to 300 employees.

Source: Xinhua