Around 2,000 businesses began operating again in June and July after having closed their doors due to the economic downturn, said Deputy Minister of Finance Do Hoang Anh Tuan in Hanoi.

Tuan told a recent press conference the businesses were identified by their renewed value added-tax (VAT) and corporate income tax returns.

The ministry’s figures also showed that in the second quarter, the number of enterprises reporting profits rose by 2.8 percent. Total VAT in July increased 5.3 percent over June.

Tuan said that by the end of June, the financial sector extended the deadline for paying taxes for about 100,000 firms, involving a total of 11 trillion VND (523.8 million USD).

He said taxes were waived in the first half of the year to help businesses overcome difficulties and reduced inventories from 36 to 24 percent.

In addition, the ministry also reduced corporate income tax by 3 percent, estimated to total about 3.6 trillion VND (171.4 million USD), for small- and medium-sized enterprises with large workforce.

He said tax deadlines had also been extended for difficult businesses, involving a total 1.6 trillion VND (76 million USD).

Ministry of Planning and Investment statistics showed that in the first half of the year, more than 26,000 businesses suspended operations or shut down, a year-on-year increase of 5.4 percent.

About 23,000 State-owned enterprises suspended operations while more than 30,000 had been or would likely be dissolved./VNA