The Ministry of Planning and Investment's Foreign Investment Agency (FIA) attributed the decline mainly to novel coronavirus epidemic, saying it had influenced investors into stopping new projects or not expanding existing ones.

The Lunar New Year (Tet) holiday, Vietnam’s biggest national festival (January 23-29 this year), also had an impact on FDI inflows in the first two months, it added.

Foreign investors injected capital into 18 fields and sectors, of which electricity production attracted the highest proportion of pledged capital, accounting for 60.2 percent at $3.89 billion. It was followed by the manufacturing and processing sector (27.3 percent).

Singapore was Vietnam’s leading FDI contributor in this period with $4.12 billion, accounting for 63.7 percent of total registered capital, followed by mainland China and South Korea, accounting for 11.1 percent and 6.6 percent respectively.

FDI disbursement reached $2.45 billion in the first two months of this year, a year-on-year decrease of five percent.

In 2019, FDI pledges for new projects, capital supplements and stake acquisitions in Vietnam rose 7.2 percent year-on-year to $38 billion, marking a 10-year high.