Registrations of new companies decreased slightly in May on an annual basis, figures published by the Department of Registrar of Companies showed on Wednesday.
 
The number of applications for registrations of new companies fell to 1.269 in May for the ninth consecutive month, from 1.272 in the same month last year, a decrease of 0.2%.
 
In the first five months of 2019 the number of applications fell by 9% to 5.595, compared with 6.151 in the same period of 2018, but recorded a significant monthly increase of 17.4%.
 
The figures showed that the number of registered companies rose to 219.780 in May from 218.954 in April and to 5.316 from January to May from 4.066 in the same period last year.