Hanoi licensed 344 foreign invested projects worth 1.5 billion USD this year, up 78.7 percent over last year, according to the Hanoi Moi daily on Dec. 26.

Of the total, 957.1 million USD came from 283 newly licensed projects, while the remaining capital came from 61 existing ones.

The newspaper cited economic experts as saying that the increase of FDI does not match Hanoi’s potential, especially in the context of limited budget capital.

The city should attract more FDI to meet its growing demand of investment capital for growth, with the aim of making a breakthrough in economic development in the time to come, they said./.