Foreign investment inflows dip nearly 15% in first 4 months

The figure, however, was higher than that of the same period of 2018 and 2017with US$5.8 billion, US$9.2 billion, respectively, the ministry said.

Of 984 newly-licensed projects in the first four months, the Bac Lieu LNG-to-power project marked the first billion-dollar foreign direct investment project in 2020 with investment capital of US$4 billion, accounting for 59% of the total registered capital volume.

Foreign investors pledged to pour capital in 18 sectors, in which manufacturing and processing took the lead with total registered capital of nearly US$6 billion, followed by power production and distribution (US$3.9 billion), wholesale and retail (US$776 million), and real estate (US$665 million).

Singapore was the biggest foreign investor as the committed volume accounted for 41.1%, or US$5.07 billion, followed by Thailand and Japan with total registered capital of US$1.46 billion and US$1.16 billion, respectively.

The ministry also said disbursed volume of foreign investment decreased by 0.6% from the same period last year to US$5.15 billion.

Foreign-invested sector's exports rose by 1.5% compared to the same period last year, to US$55.75 billion, making up 69.3% of the nation's export value.

Meanwhile, the sector's import value also picked up 2.9% to 46.32 billion, accounting for 57.6% of the nation's import volume.

Despite negative impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, the sector gained a trade surplus of US$10.2 billion, according to the ministry.

(Source: VGP)