Vietnam’s Jan.-April foreign direct investment inflows drop nearly 15%

The total newly registered capital, adjusted and contributed capital to buy shares of foreign investors in the first 4 months reached $12.33 billion, equivalent to 84.5% of the same period of 2019.

The figure, in terms of value, the registered was higher than that of the same period of 2018 and 2017 with $5.8 billion, $9.2 billion, respectively, the ministry said.

Of 984 newly-licensed projects in the first four months, the Bac Lieu LNG-to-power project marked the first billion-dollar foreign direct investment project in 2020 with investment capital of $4 billion, accounting for 59% of the total registered capital volume.

Foreign investors pledged to pour capital in 18 sectors, in which manufacturing and processing took the lead with total registered capital of nearly $6 billion, followed by power production and distribution $3.9 billion, wholesale and retail $776 million, and real estate $665 million.

Singapore was the biggest foreign investor as the committed volume accounted for 41.1%, or $5.07 billion, followed by Thailand and Japan with total registered capital of $1.46  billion and $1.16 billion, respectively.

The ministry also said disbursed volume of foreign investment decreased by 0.6% from the same period last year to $5.15 billion.

Foreign-invested sector’s exports rose by 1.5% compared to the same period last year, to $55.75 billion, making up 69.3% of the nation’s export value.

Meanwhile, the sector’s import value also picked up 2.9% to 46.32 billion, accounting for 57.6% of the nation’s import volume.

Despite negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the sector gained a trade surplus of $10.2 billion, according to the ministry.

Source: VGP