Foreign-invested projects contributed 18.2 percent of the city’s economic growth in 2007, up from 11.1 percent in 1995, Deputy Prime Minister Hoang Trung Hai said at a meeting to review 20 years of FDI in the city.

HCMC was now Vietnam’s number one destination for foreign investment, Hai said.

In 2008 alone, FDI promised to projects in HCMC exceeded $8 billion, higher than all the FDI pledged between 2002 and 2007, according to a municipal government report.

FDI first began to flow into Vietnam in 1988, two years after the government initiated the Doi moi (reform) economic policies and a year after the Foreign Investment Law came into effect.

In the past two decades, HCMC’s service sector attracted the most foreign investment, followed by the industrial, forestry and fisheries sectors. In recent years, an increasing amount of FDI had flowed into education, healthcare and high-technology projects, HCMC People’s Committee Deputy Chairman Nguyen Trung Tin said.

In 2007, Hong Kong topped the list of foreign investors in the city, committing more than $3.4 billion, followed by the Republic of Korea with $2.8 billion and Singapore with $1.98 billion.

The foreign investor ranking changed last year when Malaysia jumped to the number one spot after investing in the $3.5 billion Berjaya International University Township. In second place was Singapore, which announced a $1.2 billion investment in Thu Thiem Software Park.

More than 235,000 workers are employed at FDI-funded projects in HCMC, according to the city’s Department of Planning and Investment.

At Saturday’s meeting, HCMC People’s Committee Chairman Le Hoang Quan called for more foreign investment in such large-scale projects as the Thu Thiem and North West new urban areas, the Binh Quoi-Thanh Da eco-tourism urban area, Hiep Phuoc port and the metro system.

Quan said the city would provide more favorable conditions and an open and transparent environment for foreign investors in the future.

In a bid to speed up investment flows, HCMC is in the process of identifying the 50 largest FDI projects that have yet to disburse promised funds.

Source: Vietnews