Vietnam invests over $316M abroad in 5 months

By VNA May 28, 2023 | 10:55 pm PT

Containers seen at Cat Lai Terminal in Ho Chi Minh City. Photo by VnExpress/Thanh Nguyen

Vietnam invested nearly $316.4 million abroad in the first five months of this year, equivalent to 93.5% of the figure recorded in the same period last year.

Of the total, $142.7 million was poured into 47 new projects, or 48.6% of the figure in the same period in 2022 while $173.7 million was added to 16 underway ones, a year-on-year increase of 3.9 times, according to the Foreign Investment Agency under the Ministry of Planning and Investment.

Vietnamese investors abroad invested in 13 sectors, especially retail and wholesale, information and communications, finance, banking, agro-forestry-fisheries.

In the January-May period, Vietnamese investments landed in 20 countries and territories, led by Canada with one new and one expanded project worth over $150.2 million. It was followed by Singapore, Laos, and Cuba.

The agency said that as of May 20, Vietnam had operated 1,648 valid projects abroad with combined investment of nearly $22.1 billion, including 141 by State-owned enterprises worth $11.67 billion, accounting for 52.8% of the country’s total.

Vietnamese investment abroad is mostly in mining (31.5%) and agro-forestry-fisheries (15.6%).

Leading destinations for Vietnamese investors are Laos (24.4%), Cambodia (13.3%), and Venezuela (8.3%).