Vietnam FDI disbursement reaches new height in March

The disbursement of foreign direct investment (FDI) in Vietnam is estimated to reach a record US$1.4 billion in March, even higher than the first two months of this year, according to the Ministry of Planning and Investment's Foreign Investment Agency (FIA).

In Jan-March, the FDI disbursement is estimated to reach $2.54 billion, up 1.6 percent year on year.

However, FDI attraction in Q1 sharply dropped by 35.2 percent with 173 new projects worth around $2.1 billion. The country also allowed 41 existing projects to raise their capital by $334 million.

The country has attracted $814 million of FDI capital in March alone, according to FIA.

This time, FDI disbursement is higher than newly-registered investment, which is very rare.

This showed that although the world economy is facing many difficulties, foreign investors still have confidence in Vietnam's investment environment, Thoi Bao Kinh Te Sai Gon newspaper quoted the FIA.

Although the FDI attraction of Q1 of 2010 has declined, up to 65 percent of this amount was poured into manufacturing, processing industries, the agency said.

The outstanding FDI project in Jan-March was the US-based First Solar’s solar panel plant with a total registered capital of $300 million which will be built on a 44-hectare site in Ho Chi Minh City’s Dong Nam Industrial Zone.

Meanwhile, the real estate field ranked third in terms of investment capital with $230 million.

The southern economic hub of HCMC in Q1 attracted more than $1 billion with 35 licensed projects, followed by central Da Nang City and Ninh Thuan Province with $364.7 million and $266 of new and increased capital respectively.

Singapore took the lead in the list of foreign investors in Vietnam with registered capital of over $1.1 billion. The runners-up were Hong Kong and British Virgin Islands with $331.5 million and $277.4 million, respectively.

In the first three months of this year, FDI enterprises incurred a trade surplus of $969 million including $411 million of crude oil.

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