Foreign investment hits 11.57 billion USD

CA/Hanoi - Vietnam has attracted more than 11.57 billion USD in foreign direct investment (FDI) since the beginning of this year, a year-on-year drop of 12.3 percent.

Of the figure, 10.79 billion USD came from 658 newly-licensed projects, up 41 percent year-on-year in value, and 787 million USD from 143 operational projects, down 85.8 percent in terms of capital compared to the same period last year.

In August alone, the country licensed 125 projects with a combined registered capital of 2.47 billion USD and permitted six others to add 72 million USD to their existing investments, reported the Foreign Investment Agency (FIA) under the Ministry of Planning and Investment.

As many as 850 million USD of FDI were disbursed in August, bringing the total amount so far this year to 7.25 billion USD, a year-on-year rise of 3.6 percent, according to the FIA.

During the January-August period, the FDI-invested sector earned 23.96 billion USD from exports and spent 22.37 billion USD on imports, year-on-year rise of 26.6 percent and 43.6 percent, respectively.

Vietnam expects to attract between 22-25 billion USD in FDI this year./.