Hanoi (VNA) – Vietnam attracted 1,171 new foreign direct investment (FDI) projects with a total registered capital of over 60.2 billion USD in 2008, tripling last year’s figure, reported the Foreign Investment Department under the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI).
In December alone, the country licensed 112 FDI projects with a combined registered capital of over 1.17 billion USD.
The newly registered capital was mainly poured into the industrial and construction sectors, with 572 projects capitalized at over 32.6 billion USD, accounting for nearly 49 percent of the total number of projects and 54 percent of the total capital.
The service sector ranked second with 554 projects with a combined registered capital of 27.4 billion USD, accounting for 47.3 percent and 45.4 percent, respectively. The remaining was injected into the agro-forestry-fishery sector.
Most FDI projects licensed in 2008 were wholly foreign-invested, making up 75.3 percent of the total projects and 51.7 percent of the total capital. The projects’ average size reached 51.47 million USD, up sharply from previous years.
This year, 311 existing projects registered to increase investment with additional capital of 3.74 billion USD, equivalent to the annual registered capital five years ago.
In total, Vietnam attracted over 64 billion USD in both newly registered and additional FDI in 2008, doubling the figure from 2007. The volume of disbursed capital reached 11.5 billion USD, up 43 percent against last year.
Malaysia topped the list of 50 countries and territories registering to invest in Vietnam this year with 55 projects capitalized at 14.9 billion USD. It was followed by Taiwan , Japan , Singapore and Brunei .
Despite the Vietnamese economy’s difficulties in the year’s first months, FDI enterprises still saw improving business results with total yearly revenues of 50.55 billion USD, a 24.4 percent increase against last year. The figure included 24.46 billion USD in exports, accounting for 40 percent of the country’s total export turnover.