The nation's fresh foreign direct investment (FDI) approvals had amounted to US$21.6 billion in the year to mid-December, a year-on-year pickup of 54.5%, beating the Ministry of Planning and Investment's earlier forecast.
According to the General Statistics Office (GSO), there were nearly 1,300 new projects licensed with total registered capital of US$14.3 billion, up 70.5% year-on-year and 472 operational projects got approval to inject an extra US$7.3 billion, up 30.8%.
The Ministry of Planning and Investment's 2013 FDI target is only US$14 billion. GSO has yet to gather data about the projects whose investment licenses have been issued this month by provincial authorities.
FDI disbursements are estimated at US$11.5 billion this year, a 9.9% year-on-year increase. The figure was slightly higher than the ministry's target at around US$10.5-US$11 billion.
Industrial processing and manufacturing remained the most attractive sector with US$16.6 billion, accounting for 76.9% of total FDI approvals. Power generation and distribution, gas and water supply, and air conditioning followed with US$2 billion, accounting for 9.4% of total FDI capital. The other sectors accounted for 13.7% with US$3 billion.
Notably, more foreign capital is flowing into other provinces than HCMC, Hanoi and Binh Duong. Thai Nguyen Province for the first time attracted the most FDI capital with over US$3.38 billion, accounting for 23.7% of the total, followed by Binh Thuan with US$2 billion (14.2%), Haiphong with US$1.8 billion (12.9%).
Among 50 nations and territories with new investment licenses in Vietnam, Korea was the biggest investor with over US$3.7 billion, making up 26.3% of the total. Singapore came next with over US$3 billion, China nearly US$2.3 billion, Japan nearly US$1.3 billion and Russia US$1 billion.
Source: StoxPlus
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