Business and investment prospects and opportunities with the US in the southern key economic region was the theme of a Vietnam-US business forum held in Ho Chi Minh City on December 16.

The region, including Ho Chi Minh City and Dong Nai, Binh Duong, Ba Ria-Vung Tau, Tay Ninh, Binh Phuoc, Long An and Tien Giang provinces, accounts for 60 percent of the State budget and over 70 percent of the country’s export turnover. The region is now leading the country in Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) attraction.

At the forum, Deputy Director of the HCM City Economic Institute Nguyen Thieng Duc said the region has the advantage in industry, hi-tech, electronics, information technology, oil and gas technologies and petrochemical products as well as high-end services such as finance and banking, telecoms and tourism.

According to the Ministry of Planning and Investment, by August 2010, the US had 544 investment projects in Vietnam with a total registered capital of 16.4 billion USD, ranking sixth among 92 countries and territories investing in the country.

In the first nine months of this year, US investment reached nearly 1.8 billion USD, accounting for 15.7 percent of the total newly registered capital, and was poured mainly into Ba Ria-Vung Tau, Dong Nai and Binh Duong provinces and Ho Chi Minh City .

Areas that US businesses focus on include services, hotel tourism, industry, construction, and agro-forestry-fisheries.

Two-way trade between Vietnam and the US has continuously increased over the past years. The US remains Vietnam ’s largest export market with an export turnover reaching 9.1 billion USD in the first eight months of 2010, up 25. 7 percent compared with the same period last year.

Vietnam exports mainly garments, footwear, wood and wooden products and seafood to the US , while importing machinery, equipment, cattle feed and materials from the North American country./.