VOV.VN - Vietnam attracted US$20.21 billion in foreign direct investment (FDI) during the past nine months of the year, representing a rise of 7.7% against the same period from last year, according to statistics released by the Foreign Investment Agency.

Of the figures, there were 2,254 newly-registered projects capitalized at more than US$10.23 billion, a rise of 66.3% in terms of the number of projects and 43.6% in capital.

In addition, more than US$5.15 billion was added to 934 existing projects, representing a rise of 21.5% in relation to the number of products but a fall of 37.3% in capital on-year.

Furthermore, the value of capital contributions and share purchase deals reached more than US$4.82 billion, down 5.9% in number but up 47% in capital from the previous year.

According to experts, FDI inflows to the country continue to increase, although the growth rate has decreased slightly by 0.5 percentage points compared to the figure of 8.2% recorded in the initial eight months of the year.

However, FDI disbursement saw positive signs, reaching more than US$15.9 billion, up 2.2% on-year, an increase of 0.5 percentage points compared to the first eight months of the year.

Insiders have attributed the positive signs to the Government’s drastic and effective solutions in terms of both supporting enterprises and removing their difficulties in a bid to facilitate further FDI disbursement.

Most notably, the number of projects registering to adjust their investment capital has seen a steady increase compared to last year, thereby affirming foreign investors' trust in the country’s investment climate and their decisions to expand existing projects locally.

Foreign investors have injected their money into 18 industries out of 21 national economic sectors in the reviewed period with the processing and manufacturing industry taking the lead with total investment capital reaching more than US$14 billion.

The real estate sector ranked second with nearly US$1.94 billion, followed by the finance - banking sector with roughly US$1.54 billion, along with the wholesale and retail industries at nearly US$734 million

Singapore topped the list of countries investing in the Vietnamese market with a total investment capital of more than US$3.98 billion. They were followed by China with US$2.92 billion, Japan with US$2.9 billion, and other investors such as are the Republic of Korea, Hong Kong (China), and Taiwan (China).