HANOI, March 15 (Xinhua) -- The cost of construction materials remains stubbornly high in Vietnam, making it difficult for businesses to accept contracts for construction projects that require large amounts of steel, local media reported on Wednesday.

While the price of cement has stabilized, other essential building materials such as steel and construction sand continue to increase in price, causing businesses to fear heavy losses, local newspaper Vietnam News reported.

Construction enterprises, which already had difficulty in maintaining their cash flow, high borrowing costs and many debts from the declining real estate market, are now gradually getting hit by fluctuations in the price of building materials, the newspaper said.

It is predicted that if this situation persists, the number of companies with sufficient capacity and quality in the construction industry could be counted on one hand in the next five years, the newspaper added.

Vietnam had a total of 51,401 enterprises withdrawing from the market in the first two months of this year, a year-on-year increase of 14.5 percent, according to the business registration authority.

Among 17 business lines, construction and real estate businesses have a very high number of enterprises suspending business with more than 7,180 enterprises.

The construction industry has 5,525 enterprises registered to suspend their business, up 22 percent year on year. As many as 1,660 enterprises in the real estate industry were registered to quit in the past two months, surging 57 percent. Enditem

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