Vietnam's new project investment abroad doubles in five months

Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh attended the opening ceremony of FPT Software's new office in New York City in May. (Photo: VNA)

Hanoi - Vietnamese enterprises pumped nearly 340 million USD of total investment into new and supplemental capital ventures abroad in the first five months, down 38 percent year-on-year, the latest report by the Foreign Investment Agency (FIA) revealed.

Despite a decline in total investment, their investments into new projects topped over 293 million USD, double that in the same period last year, thanks to five new projects of Vines Energy Solutions JSC in the US, Canada, France, Germany and the Netherlands, with registered capital of 34.7 million USD each.

During the five months, the firms also poured an additional 45 million USD into operating projects, equivalent to 11 percent of the figure seen in the same period last year, the FIA said.

The plunge in additional investment in five months of 2022 was attributable to the fact that many large-scale projects in the same period last year raised their investments, such as a Vingroup project in the US which increased capital by 300 million USD; an Indochina Rubber Investment and Development Co project in Cambodia which added 76 million USD into its operations in the market and the 32 million USD adjustment of the VinFast project in Germany.

From January to May, Vietnamese enterprises made outbound investments in 12 sectors. The manufacturing and processing industry lured the most capital with eight newly-licensed projects worth some 204.4 million USD, making up 60 percent of the country's total outbound investment.

Banking, finance and insurance came next with four capital-added projects valued at nearly 35.34 million USD or 10.4 percent of the total, followed by mining, information and communication and wholesale and retail.

According to the FIA, 19 countries and territories received Vietnamese investment during the period. Of them, Laos took the lead with four new capital expansion projects worth a combined 64 million USD, equal to 19 percent.

Singapore came second, luring in 39 million USD, or 11.5 percent. The US, Germany and the Netherlands were the runners-up.

As of May 20, Vietnam had 1,555 operational projects abroad, with a total investment of 21.6 billion USD, with 139 invested by State-owned enterprises, making up 53.8 percent or nearly 11.6 billion USD of the total investment.

The majority of its overseas investments came towards to mining sector, 32.3 percent, and the agro-forestry-fishery sector, 15.8 percent. Countries with the largest investment from Vietnam were Laos (24.8 percent), Cambodia (13.6 percent) and Venezuela (8.5 percent).

Baodautu.vn cited the FIA as saying that amid the conflict in Ukraine, the department requested investors to report the situation of their investment and operation activities in the country and the number of Vietnamese workers working in Russia and Ukraine, as well as the difficulties and obstacles faced by businesses and their suggestions and recommendations.

Earlier, the Ministry of Planning and Investment also recommended businesses downsize or delay, temporarily suspending operations in Ukraine. Currently, Vietnam's investment in Ukraine was modest in terms of the number of projects and capital levels, the newspaper reported.