Vietnam lured 9.56 billion USD in foreign direct investment (FDI) in the first eight months of 2011, equivalent to 74 percent of the sum attracted in the same period last year.

According to the Foreign Investment Agency under the Ministry of Planning and Investment, 7.94 billion USD of the amount cam from 582 FDI projects licensed in the period, representing year-on-year decreases of 30 percent in capital and 34 percent in the number of projects.

The remaining 1.62 billion USD were increased investment from the existing 168 projects.

FDI still headed into processing and manufacturing industries.

In contrary to the downward trend of the registered FDI capital, the eight-month FDI disbursement reached 7.3 billion USD, an increase of 1 percent against the same period last year.

FDI projects (including crude oil) posted total export and import turnovers of 32.64 billion USD and 30.1 billion USD in the first eight months of the year, up 34 percent and 31 percent respectively./.