Vietnam attracts foreign capital despite pandemic

Capital magnet

According to the Foreign Investment Agency under the Ministry of Planning and Investment, the total amount of foreign investment poured into Vietnam this year to September 20 reached US$21.2 billion, equivalent to 81.1 percent of the amount in the same period last year. The manufacturing and processing sector led with foreign investment of nearly US$9.9 billion, accounting for 46.6 percent of the nation’s total. Power generation and distribution came next with more than US$4.3 billion (20.6 percent).

In the first nine months of the year, foreign investors invested in 60 out of 63 provinces and cities in Vietnam. Bac Lieu Province became the leading locality in FDI attraction thanks to Singapore’s US$4 billion Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) Power Plant project. Ho Chi Minh City ranked second with US$3.25 billion, followed by Hanoi with US$2.92 billion.

Although the total amount of foreign investment poured into Vietnam in the first nine months of the year was lower than the same period last year because of a sharp decline in global investment due to the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, Vietnam remained attractive to foreign investors thanks to its competitive advantages and strong reforms of the investment environment, as well as effective Covid-19 prevention and control.

Many multinational corporations have been interested in promoting business and investment activities in Vietnam. Reviews by Vietnamese representative agencies abroad indicate that up to 126 large corporations are relocating their investments and wish to invest in Vietnam, creating a major opportunity to select high-quality investment inflows.

Online investment promotion

Since the beginning of the year, the Ministry of Planning and Investment has strengthened online investment promotion, including meetings with partners in Asia such as Japan and Singapore or in Europe like France.

Representatives of more than 70 big French corporations and companies attended the Vietnam-France Online Seminar, jointly organized by the Ministry of Planning and Investment, the Embassy of Vietnam in France and MEDEF - the leading network of French entrepreneurs, in order to seek ways to promote French investments in Vietnam. The Vietnam-Japan investment matching seminar also engaged the interest of more than 1,000 Japanese companies.
The Ministry of Planning and Investment expects investors will visit Vietnam, especially in 2021, to seek investment opportunities.

To draw new FDI flows, Vietnam’s National Assembly recently passed the revised Law on Enterprises and Law on Investment to ease the conditions for doing business in Vietnam. In addition, the country has been cleaning up land and factory pollution and building necessary infrastructure, while accelerating the training of human resources, welcoming experts and high-skilled employees to Vietnam, strengthening the development of support industries and devising special incentives for large-scale and high-quality projects.