_{According to statistics provided by the HCMC Export Processing and Industrial Zones Authority (Hepza), the January-September period saw 20 enterprises suspending operation, including 13 foreign-invested ones with chartered capital of US$18.4 million and seven local firms (VND122.8 billion).}

_{Besides, 21 other enterprises dissolved in the period. Among these, there are five foreign-invested enterprises with total investments of over US$6 million and 16 local ones with over US$1.544 trillion.}

_{According to Hepza, high costs of workshop lease, inefficient operation, and operation restructuring are among reasons choking off enterprises.}

_{Besides, due to business difficulties, 15 foreign-invested and 20 local enterprises announced to cut their production output by 20-30%. These enterprises are those producing building materials, interior decorations, electric equipment and apparel products.}

_{Such moves of enterprises resulted in over 1,170 laborers being laid off in the nine-month period.}

_{Regarding the information which says that foreign-invested enterprises at EPZs and IPs incur huge losses and are suspected of transfer pricing, a representative of Hepza said that there has not official statistics about the number of enterprises reporting losses in the period.}

_{Last year’s report of Hepza indicated that up to 114 out of 416 foreign-invested enterprises at EPZs and IPs in HCMC reported losses and did not pay corporate income tax.}

_{However, according to Hepza, only Vietnamese enterprises as a whole faces difficulties caused by economic difficulties while the foreign-invested enterprises do not and still achieve slight growth in production and export.}

_{In the nine-month period, the export turnover of enterprises at EPZs and IPs was estimated at US$3.4 billion, equivalent to 66.67% of the year’s target and up 6.2% year-on-year. Meanwhile, enterprises imported US$2.5 billion worth of products, declining by 10.7%.}

_{Besides, January-September investment attraction inched up by 48.22% year-on-year to over US$480 million, with foreign investments accounting for over US$341 million, or an increase of 114.27%.}

_{Nevertheless, most of the fresh foreign-invested projects licensed in the period were of small and medium scale.}

_{Meanwhile, in terms of domestic investments, EPZs and IPs attracted US$138.8 million in the period, down 15.7% from last year’s same period. The reason for this are domestic economic situations remaining difficult, declining purchasing power, huge inventories, according to Hepza.}