The third draft of the foreign direct investment attraction programme for the 2006-2010 period has been finalised by the Ministry of Planning and Investment.

Under the programme, total foreign direct investment (FDI) in the next five years will reach between US$30 and US$34 billion. Of the figure, US$20-24 billion will be newly registered capital and the remainder will be additional capital. From now till 2010, US$24 billion in FDI capital will be disbursed with the industrial sector accounting for 55 percent, service sector 37 percent, and the agro-forestry-fisheries sector 8 percent.

The programme for FDI attraction will specially focus on encouraging investment in information technology, electronics, bio-technology, source technology from developed countries, and agro-forestry-fisheries processing.

Statistic from the Ministry of Planning and Investment showed that since the beginning of the year, Vietnam has an additional 421 FDI projects that have received investment licenses with a total registered capital of more than US$2.9 billion.

The number of projects is 200 lower than last year’s corresponding period but the registered capital is US$45 million higher.

In addition, 216 operational projects have registered to expand their operations with a total additional capital of US$1.05 billion, representing 86 percent of last year’s figure.

As such, in the past eight months, FDI attraction fell 1 percent to reach US$4.08 billion.

In the past eight months, foreign-invested projects disbursed more than US$2.4 billion, up 10.6 percent or US$2.2 billion from a year earlier. Total newly granted and additionally increased capital in the reviewed period reached US$4 billion.

In August alone, eight more projects were licensed to operate in Vietnam with total registered capital of US$54 million.

Revenue from foreign-invested enterprises in August is estimated at US$3.1 billion, bringing the total revenue of the first eight months of this year to US$18.3 billion, an increase of 24.7 percent compared to the same period last year. Export turnover from the foreign-invested sector is expected to reach US$9.45 billion, up 37.6 percent while import turnover in August is predicted to hit US$1.55 billion, raising the total import value of the eight months to US$US$10.5 billion, up 22.2 percent.

The investment capital level for a project in the past eight months averages US$7.5 million. Particularly among newly licensed projects, there were a number of noteworthy high-capital undertakings such as a US$650 million project invested by the US giant chip maker Intel, a US$314.1 project invested by West Lake company, and a US$300 project invested by Winvest Investment.

Source: VOV