VOV.VN - Vietnam remains a "shining star" in Southeast Asia despite facing power shortages last year and a weakened real estate last year, said Kai Wei Ang, ASEAN economist at BofA Securities Inc., formerly Bank of America Merrill Lynch.

In a recent talk  on CNBC's Squawk Box program, Kai Wei Ang highlighted Vietnam's advantages in terms of a competitive labor market and a series of free trade agreements (FTAs) that help export activities to other markets such as the European Union (EU) more easily. According to him, this is a basic factor that helps Vietnam attract more investment.

Touching upon the power imbalance in early summer 2023 which was due to scorching weather, he said the Vietnamese authorities have learnt from the experience and made better preparations while carrying out more pre-emptive approaches in a bid to prevent the repeat of the shortages.

An economist from BofA Securities Inc emphasized that over the past decade, Vietnam has continued to attract foreign direct investment (FDI) flows and the country is still a bright star, a bright spot in the region.

Kai Wei Ang cited statistics from the Vietnamese Government saying that as of May 20, 2024, the total newly registered capital, adjusted capital, and capital contributions, share purchases, and capital contributions of foreign investors during the past 5 months reached US$11.071 billion, an increase of nearly 2% over the same period from last year. Roughly US$8.25 billion was disbursed for foreign investment projects, a rise of 7.8% on- year.