The foreign-invested sector earned a trade surplus of 1.22 billion USD in the first seven months of the year, according to the Foreign Investment Agency (FIA) under the Ministry of Planning and Investment.

In seven months the sector’s exports, including crude oil, hit 20.6 billion USD, a year-on-year increase of 26.7 percent. Meanwhile, its import turnover was 19.45 billion USD, up 46.4 percent.

The department also said the country’s disbursement of foreign direct investment (FDI) in July and in the first seven months of the year were optimistic. So far this year, 6.4 billion USD was disbursed, equal to two thirds of the yearly plan.

In July, the country licensed an additional 95 foreign-invested projects with a combined registered capital of 508 million USD, bringing the total number of newly-licensed projects in seven months to 533 and the registered capital to 8.4 billion USD, a year-on-year increase of 5.4 percent.

In addition, 16 existing projects increased their capital in July by a total 190 million USD, bringing the amount of capital added to existing projects in the Jan-July period to 715 million USD.

Countries and territories with high investment capital in Vietnam in the reviewed period were the Netherlands, the Republic of Korea, Japan, the US, Taiwan, Cayman Islands, China, Singapore and Russia./.