Foreign investment exceeds US$33 billion in 11 months

HCMC – Vietnam has attracted US$4.85 billion of foreign investment this month, taking the total pledged capital in the year to date to more than US$33 billion, up nearly 83% year-on-year.

According to the Foreign Investment Agency under the Ministry of Planning and Investment, in the year to November 20, over 2,290 new projects had obtained investment certificates with total registered capital of US$19.8 billion, up 52% year-on-year.

Besides, 1,100 foreign-invested projects got approval to inject an additional US$8 billion, up nearly 58% year-on-year. There were more than 4,500 mergers and acquisitions (M&A) deals involving foreign investors with total capital contributions of about US$5.3 billion, up nearly 58%.

As such, the total amount of foreign investment this year to date has amounted to more than US$33 billion. It is estimated that foreign investment into the country would reach US$35 billion by the end of this year, far exceeding the Ministry of Planning and Investment’s expectation of US$28 billion.

The processing and manufacturing sector took the lead in attracting foreign funds in the 11 months, though its proportion tumbled. With nearly US$15 billion of foreign investment in January-October, this sector made up less than 50% of the country’s total, a sharp fall compared to its proportion of about 70% in the past few years.

Meanwhile, the power generation and distribution sector came second with total foreign investment of nearly US$8.4 billion, accounting for a quarter of the country’s total. Attracting US$2.5 billion, the real estate sector came third, making up nearly 8%.

As of November 20, foreign direct investment (FDI) projects had disbursed US$16 billion, up 11.9% over the same period last year.

In January-November, exports of FDI enterprises, including crude oil, reached nearly US$141 billion, up nearly 23% from the year-ago period and accounting for more than 72% of the country’s total export revenue.

Their imports have also risen by more than 23% year-on-year to nearly US$115 billion, making up 60% of the country’s total. This led to the FDI sector’s trade surplus of more than US$26 billion.

According to the Foreign Investment Agency, there have been 112 countries and territories investing in Vietnam this year to date.

Japan has surpassed South Korea to become the biggest investor with nearly US$9 billion, or 27% of the country’s total. South Korea came second with total registered capital of nearly US$8.2 billion and Singapore took the third position with US$4.7 billion.

Source: The Saigon Times