Phan Huu Thang, director of the Foreign Investment Agency at the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI), last week said that the annual $4-billion targeted in implemented foreign direct investment (FDI) capital would be met on the basis of both the nine-month results of the country’s foreign inflows and the utilisation of Decree 108/2006/ND-CP on guiding the new Investment Law as a tool to cut red tape for drawing foreign investors.

Recent MPI figures show that 580 projects with a total pledged investment capital of $3.8bn were licensed in the first nine months of the year. They showed a humble increase of 1.8 per cent in newly licensed projects but a sharp rise of 47.7 per cent in terms of pledged investment capital over the same period last year.

The sharp rise in the pledged investment was largely due to a $1.05bn steel project by Taiwan’s Tycoons, which received an investment certificate in September.

If expansive foreign-invested projects are counted, new FDI inflows in the first nine months of the year made a sharp 26 per cent to reach almost $5.2bn. MPI figures also indicate that with the implemented FDI capital of $2.8bn for the first nine months, the nation has gone three-quarters of the way to reach the annual target of $4bn for the entire year.

“The picture seems brighter in the final quarter of the year when the new decentralisation move comes into effect. I am confident to say that all cities and provinces are welcoming the decree, as it is giving them ll independence to determine foreign investment activities in their localities,” Thang said.

Decree 108 will give full authority to people’s committees in 64 cities and provinces across Vietnam so that they will independently determine any foreign invested projects to be licensed and then manage the projects’ operations within their boundaries regardless of the projects’ investment scales and fields.

But in-principle prime ministerial approval is technically needed in cases where proposed projects have not yet been incorporated into the approved planning strategies of the sector.

Nguyen Van Lai, director of Vinh Phuc Planning and Investment Authority, could not hide his appreciation for the new decree, which he said would facilitate foreign investors to the province. In the first nine months of the year, Vinh Phuc received 19 new foreign-invested projects worth of $106 million. Lai said that FDI inflows in the province in the final quarter would make a great leap if Korea’s $570m horse race track project was approved. The project will become the largest in Vinh Phuc, leaving other potential Japanese investors like Toyota and Honda far behind.

“Being located close to Hanoi and having convenient transport systems to the airports and seaports, Vinh Phuc is taking full use of its advantages to become the best place for locating foreign-invested companies,” he said.