Vietnam attracted US$3.15 billion in foreign direct investment (FDI) and capital for share purchases in July, representing a rise of 79.8% against the same period last year and 76.2% against June, reported the Foreign Investment Agency (FIA) under the Ministry of Planning and Investment.

Of the figure, US$1.02 billion was registered to be poured into 202 new projects, up 2.8% and 19.1% over June and the same period last year, respectively.

Ninety-three existing projects increased their registered capital by a total of US$992 million, more than two times higher than the same month of 2019. Foreign investors spent nearly US$1.13 billion to buy stakes at 334 projects, 2.8 times higher than July 2019.

In the first seven months of 2020, Vietnam attracted a total sum of US$18.82 billion, equivalent to 93.1% of the same period last year.

A sum of US$10.12 billion was disbursed in the seven-month period, equivalent to 95.9% of last year’s amount.

There were 1,620 new FDI projects in the period with a total registered capital of US$9.46 billion, US$4 billion of which was registered to flow into the Bac Lieu LNG power plan. Average registered capital per project was US$5.8 million compared to US$4.3 million in last year’s same period.

About 619 projects had their registered capital increased in the period by more than US$4.7 billion altogether, up 37.7%.

However, capital for share purchases dropped by around 50% to US$4.64 billion.

According to the Foreign Investment Agency, FDI flowed into 18 sectors in January-July, led by the manufacturing and processing industry with total registered capital of more than US$8.96 billion. Power production and distribution ranked second with a total registered capital of US$3.95 billion.

Vietnam saw the FDI inflow coming from 104 countries and territories from the beginning of this year. Singapore was the largest investor in the period which registered to pour US$6.44 billion in Vietnam, followed by the Republic of Korea with US$2.8 billion, and China with US$1.7 billion. In terms of new projects, the Republic of Korea ranked first with 421 projects, China came second with 237 projects and Japan came third with 175 projects.

Foreign players invested in 59 out of the country’s 63 provinces and cities in the January-July period, with Bac Lieu province being the top destination thanks to the US$4 billion LNG power project. Hanoi ranked second with US$2.82 billion registered FDI and HCM City third with US$2.4 billion.

By the end of July, there were 32,391 valid FDI projects in Vietnam with total registered capital of US$380.6 billion, US$221.8 billion was disbursed.

The agency said that the COVID-19 pandemic was weighing on FDI attraction in the period but also created significant opportunities for Vietnam to capture the capital flow spurred by the global shift of value chains, given the country’s improved investment climate and infrastructure system.

The recent European Chamber of Commerce in Vietnam’s Business Climate Index survey found that European business leaders were positive about the country’s business and investment environment with around half predicting that Vietnam’s macro-economic climate would “stabilise and improve” in the next quarter.

According to Japan External Trade Organization (JETRO), fifteen out of 30 Japanese firms chose Vietnam as the destination for production expansion within the Japanese government’s programme to support Japanese firms to diversify their value chains in foreign countries.

Vietnam set the target of attracting US$35-36 billion in FDI this year.

The country attracted US$38.02 billion in FDI last year, up 7.2% against 2018 with US$20.38 billion disbursed.