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The Ministry of Economy and Commerce has issued its Business Progress Report on the Commerce Sector for December 2017. The report indicated the registration of 2572 new companies including 2056 main commercial records and 516 branch commercial records.
 
Limited liability companies accounted for 63% of new commercial records followed by limited liability companies in the category of single-person companies at 27% while 9% of new companies were registered in the category of Individual Corporations.
 
Contracting companies topped the list of most common activities in December, with 1507 commercial records issued in this field. 1067 commercial records were issued for restaurants, cafeterias and ice cream shops while 962 records were issued for grocery stores and supply shops. The field of public trading followed with 899 records while construction material trading accounted for 872 records.
 
The report pointed out that a total of 6659 commercial licenses were issued, amended or renewed in December. 1304 new commercial licenses were issued while 858 were modified and 4497 commercial licenses were renewed.
 
A total of 324 companies closed in December, representing 12.5% of newly registered companies.
 
Regarding write-off activities, contracting companies topped the list at 27%, followed by public trading companies at 21%. Trading in construction materials, electrical appliances and electronics followed in third place at 18% while grocery stores and supplies came at 16%.

The report has indicated that the total number of transactions that took place during December 2017 at the ministry’s branches reached 1583 transactions.
 
In the area of intellectual property rights, the report indicated that 63 new patent applications were issued in December while 178 patent applications were renewed. In addition, 3701 trademarks have been registered during December, while 12 certificates were issued in the field of copyright and related rights.