A 36 percent increase or 22.34 billion USD in foreign direct investment (FDI) was registered in 2013, a revised report by Foreign Investment Agency under the Ministry of Planning and Investment noted.
Earlier, in December, the agency announced that the country had attracted approximately 21.63 billion USD in FDI for the year. However, this figure was calculated as of December 15.
According to the new report released last week, up to 1,530 new foreign-invested projects were licensed with a total registered capital of 14.48 billion USD by the end of 2013, increasing 67 percent against the previous year's figure.
Five of these projects were large-scale with an investment capital of over 1 billion USD or equivalent to 54 percent of the total FDI pledged in the country. Among them included a two-billion-USD factory for manufacturing and assembling electronics being developed by Samsung Electronics Vietnam and China's Vinh Tan No 4 thermal power plant worth over 2 billion USD.
Another positive development was the approval of the expansion of 590 existing projects, thereby adding 7.86 billion USD to their capital and marking a slight increase of 1.5 percent.
During the reviewed period, FDI disbursement also showed a positive trend with 10 percent rise over the previous year at 11.5 billion USD.
The manufacturing and processing sector attracted the largest share of FDI, reaching 17.14 billion USD or 77 percent of the nation's total registered capital. The wholesale and retail and real estate sectors ranked second and third, attracting 2.04 billion USD and 952 million USD, respectively.
Among the 57 countries and territories investing in Vietnam, Japan was the leading source of FDI with over 5.87 billion USD, which is 24 percent of the total FDI registered in the country. It was followed by Singapore (4.76 billion USD) and the Republic of Korea (4.46 billion USD).
The report revealed that the northern province of Thai Nguyen was considered the most attractive destination by foreign investors last year with 3.4 billion USD investment, accounting for 15.2 percent of the country's total FDI. The central province of Thanh Hoa and northern port city of Hai Phong ranked second and third, with 2.93 billion USD and 2.61 billion USD, respectively.
During the January-December period, the foreign-invested sector generated 88.19 billion USD from exports, a yearly rise of 22.1 percent or equivalent to 66.7 percent of the country's total export turnover, while its imports reached 74.42 billion USD, up 24.2 percent.
VNA
