Vietnam attracted USD 3.15 billion in foreign direct investment (FDI) and capital for share purchases in July, representing a rise of 79.8 percent against the same period last year and 76.2 percent against June, reported the Foreign Investment Agency (FIA) under the Ministry of Planning and Investment.
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| RoK-invested ITM Semiconductor Vietnam in the Vietnam - Singapore Industrial Park, Bac Ninh province__Photo: VNA |
Of the figure, USD 1.02 billion was registered to be poured into 202 new projects, up 2.8 percent and 19.1 percent over June and the same period last year, respectively.
Ninety-three existing projects increased their registered capital by a total of USD 992 million, more than two times higher than the same month of 2019. Foreign investors spent nearly USD 1.13 billion to buy stakes at 334 projects, 2.8 times higher than July 2019.
In the first seven months of 2020, Vietnam attracted a total sum of USD 18.82 billion, equivalent to 93.1 percent of the same period last year.
A sum of USD 10.12 billion was disbursed in the seven-month period, equivalent to 95.9 percent of last year’s amount.
There were 1,620 new FDI projects in the period with a total registered capital of USD 9.46 billion, USD 4 billion of which was registered to flow into the Bac Lieu LNG power plan. Average registered capital per project was USD 5.8 million compared to USD 4.3 million in last year’s same period.
About 619 projects had their registered capital increased in the period by more than USD 4.7 billion altogether, up 37.7 percent.
However, capital for share purchases dropped by around 50 percent to USD 4.64 billion.
According to the Foreign Investment Agency, FDI flowed into 18 sectors in January-July, led by the manufacturing and processing industry with total registered capital of more than USD 8.96 billion. Power production and distribution ranked second with a total registered capital of USD 3.95 billion.
Vietnam saw the FDI inflow coming from 104 countries and territories from the beginning of this year. Singapore was the largest investor in the period which registered to pour USD 6.44 billion in Vietnam, followed by the Republic of Korea with USD 2.8 billion, and China with USD 1.7 billion. In terms of new projects, the Republic of Korea ranked first with 421 projects, China came second with 237 projects and Japan came third with 175 projects.
Foreign players invested in 59 out of the country’s 63 provinces and cities in the January-July period, with Bac Lieu province being the top destination thanks to the USD 4-billion LNG power project. Hanoi ranked second with USD 2.82 billion registered FDI and HCM City third with USD 2.4 billion.
By the end of July, there were 32,391 valid FDI projects in Vietnam with total registered capital of USD 380.6 billion, USD 221.8 billion was disbursed.
The agency said that the COVID-19 pandemic was weighing on FDI attraction in the period but also created significant opportunities for Vietnam to capture the capital flow spurred by the global shift of value chains, given the country’s improved investment climate and infrastructure system.
The recent European Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam’s Business Climate Index survey found that European business leaders were positive about the country’s business and investment environment with around half predicting that Vietnam’s macro-economic climate would “stabilize and improve” in the next quarter.
According to Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO), fifteen out of 30 Japanese firms chose Vietnam as the destination for production expansion within the Japanese government’s program to support Japanese firms to diversify their value chains in foreign countries.
Vietnam set the target of attracting USD 35-36 billion in FDI this year.
The country attracted 38.02 billion in FDI last year, up 7.2 percent against 2018 with USD 20.38 billion disbursed.- (VNA/VLLF)
