Big Investor Opportunity

9:53:08 AM | 3/20/2007

1,300 world-leading businesspeople attended the Vietnam Investment Forum 2007 held by Euromey on March 19, aiming to seek investment opportunities in the attractive growing and opening market of Vietnam, after officially WTO membership.

The Vietnam Investment Forum 2007, themed “Financing Growth - Asia’s Next Tiger” í an annual event and is one of Vietnam’s largest and most important foreign investment promotion events this year.

According to organisers, the forum provides the latest information on the growth situation in Vietnam and introduce investment opportunities for world-leading firms in Vietnam in 2007. The contents of the forum include a range of fields, from anti-corruption to equitisation of State-owned enterprises, telecom, banking reform and debt markets development. Investors are concerned about what make these fields grow and how they will be developed in the coming time. WTO entry will generate important opportunities for domestic investment as restrictions on foreign ownership are gradually reduced.

The Vietnam Investment Forum 2007 is organised amid optimistic expectations for a new year of success in foreign investment attraction of Vietnam. Minister of Planning and Investment Vo Hong Phuc acknowledged that Vietnam is on the verge of breaking a new record in foreign investment capital attraction. After Vietnam attracted a phenomenal US$10.2 billion FDI capital in 2006, it may draw up to US$20 billion FDI capital this year, according to Minister Phuc.

Vietnam has strong groundwork for this expectation. In the first two months of this year, Vietnam licensed 96 new FDI projects and allowed 38 existing FDI projects to raise their investment capital. Total registered FDI capital in the two months was nearly US$2 billion. Notably, most projects are of medium and small sizes. Dozens of multibillion US dollar projects await approval in the new year of success.

About 14 big waiting projects have an estimated investment capital of over US$20 billion. Furthermore, many big foreign investors will arrive in the country from now to the year’s end.

Mr. Don Lam, General Director of VinaCapital, a leading fund management firm in Vietnam with three funds having combined assets value of US$800 million, said this is a golden time to invest in Vietnam. VinaCapital is one of the sponsors for this forum.

Kim Phuong