Hanoi (VNA) - The foreign investment is looking up, asthe total capital pledged for investment in the country until August 20 wasnearly equal to that for the entire 2016.

The reports from the Foreign Investment Agency (FIA) showed thatforeign investors had registered to invest 23.36 billion USD into Vietnam sincethe beginning of this year until August 20 period, up 45.1 percentyear-on-year.

Last year, Vietnam reported a total registered capital of 24.3billion USD from foreign investors, up 7.1 percent against the previous year.

From the amount pledged this year, 13.45 billion USD came from1,624 new licensed projects, a 37.4 percent rise; and 6.4 billion USD was theadditional capital for 773 existing projects, up 40.2 percent. The remainingwas from the capital contribution and share purchase of foreign investors.

According to the agency, the disbursement of the capital in thefirst eight months of this year by foreign investors was also positive, with agrowth rate of 5.1 percent year-on-year to 10.3 billion USD.

In the period between January and August, foreign investors pouredthe capital into 18 industries, of which the manufacturing and processingindustry was the most attractive destination with a total capital of 11.69billion USD, equal to some 50 percent of the country’s total registered capital.However, the ratio was still lower than that in the previous years, when theindustry often attracted some 70 percent of the country’s total registeredcapital.

[30-year FDI attraction to be reviewed]

This was followed by the power production and trading industrywith 5.36 billion USD, accounting for 22.9 percent of the country’s totalregistered capital.

The mining industry was ranked the third, as its registeredcapital rose 5.5 percent to 1.28 billion USD.

The first eight months of the year saw 98 countries andterritories wanting to invest in Vietnam, of which the Republic of Korea toppedthe list with a registered capital of more than 6 billion USD, accounting for25.7 percent of the country’s total registered capital. Japan and Singaporefollowed with 5.74 billion USD and 3.92 billion USD, making up 24.58 percentand 16.8 percent of the total capital, respectively.

The business performance of the foreign firms was also optimisticduring the period. Their exports, including crude oil, rose 15.5 percent to 95.66billion USD, accounting for 71.6 percent of the country’s total export revenueduring the period.

With an import value of 81.38 billion USD, foreign firms gained atrade surplus of 14.28 billion USD during the period.-VNA