Vietnamese businesses were licensed to pour US$53.44 million into ten projects aboard between January and July this year, raising the total outbound capital of local firms to over US$680 million for 160 projects to date, the Ministry of Planning and Investment reported.
The three biggest projects in the phase are a US$22-million oil exploration project in Singapore, a US$12.5-million project to grow rubber trees in Laos, and a US$10.5-million project to build a hospital in Cambodia.
Vietnam’s investment has been mainly pumped into Laos, Cambodia, Malaysia, Iraq, Russia, Algeria and Singapore and the US with a focus on sectors of oil and gas, heavy industry, foodstuff, and construction, agriculture, and services. Among those, Laos is the destination luring the most Vietnamese investors with US$364 million. Vietnamese capital poured into Laos has recently increased rapidly as the two sides boosted cooperation in infrastructure, energy, and material area development.
Many Vietnamese firms have now expressed a high desire to expand their investment abroad, but said they need a relevant body in Vietnam to support them.
In related news, the Service of Trade of Ho Chi Minh City is seeking total investment of US$10.6 million to finance the construction of a trade center in Russia.
During the seven-month period ending July, Vietnam attracted a total of US$3.415 billion worth of pledged foreign direct investment (FDI) capital including US$2.77 billion from 367 fresh projects and US$642.6 million from capital increase of 197 existing ones, according to the government’s General Statistics Office (GSO).
The country targets to pull in US$6.5 billion FDI in 2006 and this is within its reach for the extremely bright positives in FDI attraction from the beginning of the year, said Nguyen Anh Tuan, Vice Head of the Foreign Investment Department.
Investment
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