Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) poured into the Ho Chi Minh City’s export processing and industrial zones in the first quarter of 2014 hit 243.5 million USD, up 97.26 percent over the same period last year.

According to the HCM City Export Processing and Industrial Zones Authority (Hepza), it granted investment licenses to 12 new FDI projects with a total registered capital of 223.2 million USD during the period, up more than 8 times compared to the figure of the same period last year.

Meanwhile, nine ongoing projects of this kind in the City raised their existing capital by 20.34 million USD.

Internal capital inflow to the zones in the period reached almost 713.3 billion VND (33.91 million USD), registering a year-on-year increase of nearly 65 percent. The City also granted investment licenses to eight new projects in the period.

Hepza has to date licensed 1,293 projects with a total capital of over 8 billion USD, of which 514 are FDI projects worth 4.935 billion USD.

In the second quarter, Hepza plans to assist the Vietnam – Japan Techno Park project, work harder to attract Japanese enterprises and accelerate the construction and expansion of the An Ha, Dong Nam and Tan Phu Trung industrial parks.

This year, the southern economic and business hub aims to attract 2.5 billion USD in FDI capital, which is 20 percent higher than last year's figure.

Last year, it drew in 2.08 billion USD in FDI.-VNA