Vietnam lures biggest-ever FDI in 7 months

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HANOI, July 28 (Xinhua): Vietnam has so far this year licenced 654 foreign-invested projects with total registered capital of nearly 44.5 billion US dollars, rising 546 per cent in capital against the same period last year, and equating to the combined foreign direct investment (FDI) lured from 1988 to 2006, local newspaper Investment reported today.

Among the fresh FDI, over 51.3 per cent are poured into service, and 48.2 per cent into industry, including a steel project worth nearly 7.9 billion dollars, and an oil refinery project valued at 6.2 billion dollars, the newspaper quoted statistics from the country's ministry of investment and planning as reporting.

Among the 654 projects, 27 have registered capital of at least 100 million dollars each, and eight have registered capital of one billion dollars each upward. A large number of projects are invested by multinational companies based in China's Taiwan, Japan, the United States, Canada, Singapore, Brunei, South Korea, Kuwait and the Netherlands.