Inthe first seven months 1,068 new foreign projects with an investment of6.92 billion USD received investment certificates, marginally up inmoney terms from last year.
What has dragged down the overallFDI figure is a steep 29.8 percent fall in capital augmentation byoperational foreign companies as 341 of them applied to bring in anadditional 1.88 billion USD.
Most of the FDI flowed into 16 sectors, including processing, manufacturing, and real estate.
The Republic of Korea remained the top investor followed by the UK.
FDI disbursement in the past seven months reached 7.4 billion USD, up 8.8 percent over the same period of last year.
HCMCity was the most attractive destination as 2.4 billion USD found itsway there. It was followed by the neighbouring provinces of Binh Duongwith 1.11 billion USD and Dong Nai with 1.1 billion USD.
Exportsby foreign businesses jumped by 15.1 percent to nearly 64.7 billionUSD. Their imports grew even faster – by 23.1 percent to 56.7 billionUSD.-VNA