Vietnam's foreign direct investment (FDI) plummeted during the firstfour months of the year with only 4 billionUSD earmarked by investorsfrom abroad, down 47.8 percent against the same period last year,according to the Foreign Investment Agency.
Up to 262 new foreign-invested projects, capitalised at 3.2 billion USD,were licensed from January to April, an annual decrease of 54.9percent.
FDI disbursement, an important factor to evaluatethe efficiency of investment inflows, however, still increased nearly 1percent, reaching 3.62 billion USD during the period.
Inanother bright spot, 88 existing projects registered an increase intheir levels of capital by a total of 819 million USD during the fourmonths, up 36.8 percent year-on-year.
Vietnam 's leadingsources of foreign investment include Singapore , Hong Kong ,Malaysia , the Republic of Korea and Japan , with Japanesecompanies still registering 55 new projects in Vietnam despite thedevastating impact of the earthquake and tsunami on March 11.
During the period, the processing and manufacturing sector remained theleader in attracting FDI, accounting for 2 billion USD of the firstquarter total. In addition, 75 operating projects in the sector wereallowed to raise capital by a total of 455.3 million USD.
With more than 1.1 billion USD coming to 58 new and seven expandedprojects, HCM City continued to be the most attractive destinationin the eyes of foreign investors. It was followed by Hanoi with 79projects, worth a combined 430 million USD.
Theforeign-invested sector saw an estimated four-month export turnover of15.19 billion USD, up 37 percent year-on-year. The sector also posted anexport surplus of 1.3 billion USD.
Earlier, the agencyforecast new registered FDI would likely reach about 20 billion USDthis year and over half of that sum would be implemented. Top prioritywould be given to projects in infrastructure construction, hi-tech andsupport industries./.