Abstract (EN)

Household businesses, even if they are constituted of only one self-employed person, are economic units which produce or distribute goods and services, generate income and have expenditures. They can own assets and invest part of their profit. This chapter deals with the accounts of HBs and evaluates their performance in terms of turnover, value added and profit. It also discusses the dynamics of the HBs through their investments and changes in employment in the previous year. The first section deals with the economic performance of household businesses, their structure and their characteristics. The value added generated by a HB is low on average, with a median value added of 3 million VND per month for all HBs and 2.4 million VND for informal HBs. As HBs do not employ many workers, the value added of a HB greatly determines the amount of profit made by the owner. However, there are very diverse situations. Section 2 focuses on the heterogeneity of the HBs and compares the profit earned by HBs with the minimum wage and the poverty line. The third section deals with the capital and investment of HBs. Most of them do not invest and only maintain their equipment. Formal businesses are not more prone to investing than informal ones. The last section confirms this lack of dynamism, as most HBs have been stable in terms of employment for the past twelve months. However, a minority of HBs have increased in size.