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The Ministry of Economy and Commerce has issued its Business Progress Report on the Commerce Sector for June 2017. The report indicated the registration of 1357 new companies including 972 main commercial records and 385 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 24% while 12% of new companies were registered in the category of Individual Corporations.
 
Contracting companies topped the list of most common activities in June, with 193 commercial records issued in this field. 125 commercial records were issued for restaurants, fast food outlets and fruit and vegetable shops, while 95 commercial records were issued in the field of clothing, textiles and public goods trading. The field of construction materials trading followed with 86 records.
 
The report pointed out that a total of 5530 commercial licenses were issued, amended or renewed during the month of June 2017. 849 new commercial licenses were issued while 613 were modified and 4068 commercial licenses were renewed.
 
A total of 247 companies closed in June, representing 18.2% of newly registered companies.
 
Regarding write-off activities, contracting companies topped the list at 26%, followed by restaurants, fast food outlets and vegetable and fruit shops at 20%. Trading in construction materials followed in third place at 15%.

The report has indicated that the total number of transactions that took place during June 2017 at the ministry’s branches reached 21935 transactions.
 
In the area of intellectual property rights, the report indicated that 43 new patent applications were issued in June 2017 while 87 patent applications were renewed.
 
In addition, 2566 trademarks have been registered during June, while 3 certificates were issued in the field of copyright and related rights.