Vietnam targets US, EU investors in new-generation FDI strategy

Vietnam has been attracting more FDI from Asian economies, including Japan, the Republic of Korea (RoK) and Singapore.

A report from the Foreign Investment Agency (FIA) said that by March 2018, Vietnam had attracted $59 billion worth of FDI capital from the Republic of Korea and US$49.8 billion from Japan.

Only US$9.9 billion worth of investment capital had been pledged by investors from the US, and the FDI from the EU remains modest. The Netherlands has committed US$8.3 billion worth of investments, France US$2.8 billion, and Luxembourg US$2.3 billion.

Meanwhile, both the US and EU many times have stated that they will become the leading foreign investors in Vietnam.

Despite the strong will of pushing up investments in Vietnam, the capital from the EU and the US are still far below expectations. This needs to be clarified when reviewing the 30-year implementation of the FDI attraction strategy, according to former head of FIA Phan Huu Thang.

Dau Tu quoted Nguyen Quang Bao, deputy CEO of Ban Viet Securities, as saying that American and European investors show interest in Vietnam, but are less successful than Asian investors, because Vietnam is a small-scale market. They also want high transparency, and say that cultural differences could be obstacles.

Dien Dan Doanh Nghiep cited the White Book as reporting that the EU has invested US$915.5 million in 151 projects in Vietnam.

Vietnamese agencies hope the figure will increase significantly in the time to come as a survey has found that 62.3% of investors from the EU have very satisfactory or satisfactory business performance in Vietnam.

About 70% of European businesses said they are optimistic about the business environment in Vietnam, of which 11.6% said ‘very good’ and 58% said ‘good’.

Vietnam puts a high hope on EU’s FDI in Vietnam. The EU-Vietnam FTA (EVFTA) is predicted to be inked in 2018.

Joaquim Torrinha from Eurocham also said that positive signals of the implementation of the EVFTA would consolidate business and investment activities of European enterprises in Vietnam.

A local newspaper quoted analysts as saying that Vietnam is not as bad at attracting FDI from the US and the EU as thought.

Vietnam is just second to Malaysia in FDI from the EU.

Thailand, the Philippines and Indonesia all have attracted fewer investment projects from the EU in the last 14 years.