Vietnam sees record number of new companies this year   An official receives business registration applications in Ho Chi Minh City. Photo: Kha Hoa Vietnam is estimated to have 94,000 new businesses established this year, the largest number in history, which is possibly thanks to more open business laws, a senior official said. Bui Anh Tuan, deputy head of the Business Registration Management Department at the investment ministry, said the number of new businesses has kept increasing since July, when the amended Business and Investment Laws took effect. There have been more than 40,800 new business since, up around 30 percent year-on-year. In November alone, the number was 8,400, up 8.2 percent from the same month last year.  Tuan said that the country is now on track to have 94,000 new businesses by the end of the year, which is a record high. More than 74,800 companies opened last year. “It shows that the business environment has been untied,” he said, as cited by a post on the government website. The amended laws allow businesses to expand their activities as long as what they do is not illegal. Earlier, companies in Vietnam had to specify exactly their business activities in their business license applications. The list of illegal business activities has also been shortened from 51 to 6, including wildlife trading, human trafficking and sex services. Tuan said the new rules allow businesses to make their own decisions on their number and form of operations. Figures from the General Statistics Office earlier also suggested signs of economic recovery as it showed more than 16,000 suspended businesses have returned to operation during the first ten months, up 25 percent from the same period last year. The number of shutdowns during the period dropped slightly to more than 7,600, mostly which were small businesses with registered capital of less than VND10 billion. Vietnam has forecast the quickest economic growth rate since 2010 at over 6.5 percent this year and has succeeded in controlling inflation and a troublesome blight of bad debts. Thanh Nien News