US Becomes Biggest Foreign Investor in Vietnam

The US became the biggest foreign investor in Vietnam in 2004, surpassing Japan, South Korea, Taiwan or Singapore, with total implemented capital of US$531 million, according to the latest report released on February 20 on the US’s investment into Vietnam. 

 

The figure included American investment into Vietnam through branches of US firms in Hong Kong and Singapore, and was much higher than US$169 million in 2002, US$258 million in 2001, and US$196 million in 2000.

 

The report by a research group for BTA’s impacts of US investment into Vietnam also showed that the US’s total implemented investment in Vietnam was US$2.6 billion in the 1998-2004 period, much higher than the figure US$730 million announced earlier by the Vietnamese Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI). 

 

In the 2001-2004 period, the US’s implemented investment capital in Vietnam rose by 27 per cent each year. The US became the second biggest investor in Vietnam in 2003 with US$449 million of combined implemented capital after Japan, and ranked the first in 2004.

 

According to Nguyen Anh Tuan, Vice Head of the MPI’s Foreign Investment Department this is the first report on impacts of BTA on the US’s investment into Vietnam.

 

Tuan also said he believes that the US’s investment into Vietnam would rise sharply in the coming time, especially when commitments to open markets under the BTA come into force. He forecasts that the US’s investment into Vietnam’s services, infrastructure, and information technology would grow in the near future.