Vietnamese businesses race to invest abroad

The Foreign Investment Agency under the Vietnamese Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) reported that in the first two months of this year, Vietnamese enterprises registered a huge amount of capital invested abroad.

There were 16 projects in nine investment sub‐sectors, but the total registered investment capital was estimated at over $1.264 billion, only about $300 million lower than the capital amount of foreign direct investment into Vietnam in the same period.

It would appear that Vietnamese businesses are increasingly keen on overseas investment. Compared to the first 10 years since the beginning of ʺwavesʺ for investment outside the territory of Vietnam, the first two months of this year has seen the registered capital increase of roughly 93 times.

According to FIA, total overseas investment in the whole period of 1999‐2005 is also equal to about 58 percent of the registered capital of the first two months of 2011.

It is noted that Vietnamese investors seem to increasingly be interested in big projects.

On average, the investment capital per project in the first two months of the year reached about $79 million. This figure was greater than the investment projects into Vietnam in the same period as the average amount was only $14.6 million per FDI project.

Vietnamese investors also ʺlikeʺ autonomy, while 99 percent of the total registered capital of the overseas investment projects in the first two months of this year was owned by national investors in Vietnam, of which 84 percent was the chartered capital.

According to the FIA, by the end of February 2011, Vietnam had obtained 575 projects of Vietnamese enterprises investing in 55 countries and territories, with total registered investment capital of over $23.7 billion, of which the capital of Vietnamese investors had surpassed over $10 billion.

Reportedly, earlier this month, Vietnam‐Laos joint stock company (Song Da Corporation holds controlling shares in this company) started a hydroelectric plant project in the district of Xekaman Sanxay, Attapeu province (Laos). The 322 MW hydroelectric project had total investment capital of $441 million fully invested by the Vietnamese enterprise.

This is the largest scale power project of Vietnam in Laos so far. – Vietbiz24

Tags: invest in Vietnam, Vietnam FDI, Vietnam FDI 2011, Vietnam investment