WORDS ON THE STREET 70th anniversary of Hanoi's Liberation Day Vietnam - Asia 2023 Smart City Summit Hanoi celebrates 15 years of administrative boundary adjustment 12th Vietnam-France decentrialized cooperation conference 31st Sea Games - Vietnam 2021 Covid-19 Pandemic
Nov 10, 2016 / 11:53

FDI attraction forecast to have a brighter outlook

The attraction of foreign direct investment (FDI) is predicted to have a brighter outlook in the last months, as Vietnam is expected to license two power projects worth billions of US dollars, according to Dang Xuan Quang, deputy director of Foreign Investment Agency under the Ministry of Planning and Investment.

The country’s FDI picture should rebound in the remaining months of this year, though concerns remain over fulfilling the 2016 target.
As October 20, Vietnam lured over 17.61 billion USD in newly-registered and expanded FDI capital, down 8.7% year-on-year, the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) said.
This was the second time in 2016 that Vietnam saw a decrease in FDI attraction. In September, the country also witnessed a slight on-year drop of 4.2% in new and added FDI pledges.
“This slight fall was blamed on the fact that some power projects were still waiting to complete procedures to get licences,” according to Dang Xuan Quang, deputy director of MPI’s Foreign Investment Agency (FIA).
Quang said that the FDI attraction is forecast to have a brighter outlook in the remaining months, as the country is expected to license two power projects worth billions of US dollars.

 
Photo for illustration
Photo for illustration
Besides, the cities directly under the government’s management are seeking investment licences for projects worth over 2 billion USD in total, he added.
The official predicted that agro-forestry, and seafood processing will be among the targeted areas for FDI in the next few months besides traditionally attractive sectors such as the processing and manufacturing industry and realty-energy.
The FIA targets to draw 13 billion USD worth of FDI in the second half of 2016, up 15% from the first half, thus raising the country’s total committed FDI to 24.5 billion USD this year, up 6.5% on-year.
The agency also aims to have nearly 8 billion USD worth of FDI disbursed between July and December, up 10% from the first half, increasing the total FDI disbursement to 15 billion USD.
This year’s 10-month FDI disbursement is estimated to be 12.7 billion USD, up 7.6% year-on-year.
Chairman of the Vietnam Association of Foreign Invested Enterprises Nguyen Mai said that the FDI attraction goal this year can only be reached if the country licenses several projects worth billions of dollars in the last two months of the year.
Mai added that Vietnam’s business environment has been improved, thus creating a driving force for the country to attract more FDI in the near future.
The FDI sector earned 102.7 billion USD from exports (including crude oil) in January-October, up 8.1% year-on-year, accounting for 71.2% of the country’s total export turnover.
The country enjoyed a trade surplus of 3.52 billion USD, while foreign invested firms gained a trade surplus of 19.48 billion USD.
Chairman of the Vietnam Association of Foreign Invested Enterprises Nguyen Mai noted that the FDI sector is now the main driver of economic growth and exports. “The sector is operating very well, with hundreds of our association’s member companies like Samsung reaping high profits in Vietnam”, he added.
Infrastructure, high-tech, high-tech agriculture, and real estate will be the most attractive sectors to foreign investors in the coming time, Mai predicted.