The country's foreign direct investment (FDI) capital disbursement in the first five months of the year inched up 0.4 percent against the same period last year to 4.6 billion USD.

This announcement was made by the Ministry of Planning and Investment's Foreign Investment Agency on May 26.

However, registered capital in the period declined 34 percent to 5.51 billion USD.

The figure also revealed that of the total, 3.67 billion USD went into 500 newly licensed projects, while 167 existing projects added 1.84 billion USD to their capital.

The manufacturing and processing sectors took the lead in attracting FDI capital, with 254 new projects at 3.92 billion USD, accounting for 71.2 percent of the total.

The construction sector ranked second with 49 projects, with a total investment of 463.17 million USD, accounting for an 8.4 percent share, followed by the property trading sector, with 9 projects worth 399.33 million USD (7.2 percent), and the health care and social support sector, with 225.93 million USD.

Of the 38 countries and territories investing in Vietnam in this period, the Republic of Korea was the largest investor, with both newly registered and additional capital totalling 1.31 billion USD or a 24 percent share, followed by Hong Kong, Japan and Singapore, with 629.9 million USD, 588.6 million USD and 513.3 million USD, respectively.

The southern province of Binh Duong topped the list of FDI destinations, attracting 813.59 million USD, accounting for 14.8 percent of the country's total, followed by HCM City, with 775.62 million USD, and Dong Nai, with 579.74 million USD.

FDI firms in the first five months fetched 39.45 billion USD from exports, up 17.1 percent against the same period last year, accounting for 67 percent of the country's total export value. In this period, the firms had spent 32.55 billion USD for imports, up 11.4 percent, accounting for 57 percent of the country's total import revenue.-VNA