Vietnam will focus on raising the quality of foreign direct investments (FDI) rather than the quantity of these projects in 2011, Deputy Minister of Planning and Investment Dang Huy Dong has said.

The senior government official made the statement at a recent press briefing on the FDI situation in 2010 and forecast for 2011.

Vietnam sets a target of attracting 20 billion USD in FDI next year, with 11-12.5 billion USD expected to be disbursed.

In 2011, the country will concentrate on luring FDI in infrastructure and those using hi-tech and green technology that are capable of turning out products with competitiveness, Dong said.

Attention will also be paid to attracting FDI projects involving in export and the supporting industries and ones that can join the global value chain, he said.

The Deputy Minister told the conference that inspection of the licencing and operation of FDI projects will be accelerated to ensure that domestic resources are used effectively and FDI projects develop in a sustainable manner.

Inspection will also be conduction into large scale projects that use large areas of land, face a high risk of causing environmental pollution and use a great amount of natural resources and energy.

According to the Foreign Investment Agency (FIA) under the Ministry of Planning and Investment, Vietnam saw almost 18.6 billion USD flow in 1,238 FDI projects for the whole year, representing 82.2 percent of the 2009 figure and lower than the yearly target of attracting 22-25 billion USD.

Of the sum, 17.23 billion USD was poured into new licensed projects and almost 1.4 billion USD was added to existing projects.

The agency also reported that 11 billion USD of FDI was disbursed this year, a year-on-year rise of 10 percent.

It is noteworthy that FDI businesses attained an export turnover of almost 38.83 billion USD, a year-on-year rise of 27.8 percent./.