Foreign capital mainly in processing and manufacturing industry

Halfway through 2013, the Foreign Investment Agency's report shows that the attraction of foreign direct investment (FDI) has achieved quite good results, and the notable point is that most of this capital flows into the processing and manufacturing industry.

Based on reports from localities and data collected to date, according to the Foreign Investment Agency, in the past 6 months, 554 new projects were granted investment certificates with a total registered capital of 5.812 billion USD, an increase of 3.7% over the same period last year, and 217 projects increased capital with a total additional capital of 4.66 billion USD, an increase of 35.7% over the same period in 2012.



In total, newly registered and increased investment capital nationwide attracted more than 10.47 billion USD, up 15.9% over the same period last year.

Notably, according to the Foreign Investment Agency, most of the above registered investment capital is concentrated in the processing and manufacturing industry. Specifically, in the past 6 months, there were nearly 260 projects in the processing and manufacturing industry with a total newly granted and increased capital of more than 9.3 billion USD, accounting for 88.9% of the total registered investment capital.

Most of the investment projects in this field have large registered capital, such as the project to manufacture and assemble electronic products of Samsung Group in Thai Nguyen with a registered capital of 2 billion USD, or the project to build a factory to assemble and produce bus spare parts in Binh Dinh of Bus Industrial Center Company Limited (Russia) with a registered capital of 1 billion USD... These projects have contributed to making the processing and manufacturing sector the leading registered capital in the first 6 months of this year.

Although facing many difficulties, the real estate sector has still attracted the attention of foreign investors in the past 6 months with a total newly registered and increased investment capital of nearly 420 million USD, accounting for nearly 4% of total investment capital, ranking 2nd.

Ranking third is the wholesale, retail and repair sector with 79 new investment projects, total newly registered and increased investment capital of more than 178 million USD.

According to the Foreign Investment Agency, another notable point in attracting foreign investment in the first 6 months of the year is that the disbursement of projects in this area remains stable. Specifically, in the past 6 months, it is estimated that 5.7 billion USD has been disbursed, up 5.6% over the same period last year. Analysts say this is a fairly high increase in the context of many difficulties in the domestic economy.

With the above results, analysts believe that the target of attracting 13-14 billion USD in FDI capital and implementing capital of about 10.5-11 billion USD set by the Ministry of Planning and Investment this year is within reach and can be exceeded if the investment attraction situation remains as good as it is now.

According to the Foreign Investment Agency, the business performance of FDI enterprises in the past 6 months also had a fairly high growth rate. Specifically, the export of this sector (including crude oil) in the first 6 months of 2013 is expected to reach nearly 41.14 billion USD, up 24.7% over the same period in 2012 and accounting for 66.3% of total export turnover. Exports excluding crude oil reached 37.37 billion USD, up 28.3% over the same period last year and accounting for 60.22% of total export turnover.

Imports of the FDI sector in the first 6 months of 2013 reached 35.726 billion USD, up 27.8% over the same period in 2012 and accounting for 56.3% of total import turnover. In general, in the first 6 months of 2013, the foreign investment sector had a trade surplus of 5.413 billion USD, while the whole country had a trade deficit of more than 1.4 billion USD.

According to Baocongthuong - PH