Despite a decreasing global trend, the amount of foreign direct investment (FDI) in Vietnam grew by 92.2 percent, surpassing 15 billion dollars in the first 10 months of 2018.
The Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) indicated on Monday that during this period, 2,458 new projects were authorized under this regime, and of the already existing ones, 954 increased their capital or bought shares for 6.543 billion dollars, a year-on-year growth of 35.8 percent.
From January to October of 2018, the bulk of FDI was placed in the processing and manufacturing industry (13.279 billion dollars), real estate (5.714 billion dollars) and wholesale and retail (2.385 billion dollars).
In mid-October, the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), said that in the first half of the year, FDI flows fell by 41%globally, reaching around 470 billion dollars, far from the 794 billion that circulated in the same period of 2017.
The analysis of the agency associated the decline to factors such as the tax reform in the United States at the end of 2017, which expanded the repatriations carried out by the head offices of U.S. companies of income accumulated abroad by their subsidiaries.
According to James Zhan, Director of the Investment and Enterprise Division of the UNCTAD, the panorama in this sense ‘continues being somber.’
As of August 20, 2018, there were 26,500 FDI projects with a registered capital of 334 billion dollars were activated in Vietnam.
The local authorities attribute the growing flow of foreign capital to the international prestige of the country, its responsible presence in multilateral mechanisms and the superior categorization of its business environment.