Vietnam eyes 55 bln-foreign investment in 5 years

Vietnam has targeted Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) of some 55 billion U.S. dollars, and realized FDI of 24-25 billion dollars between 2006 and 2010, according to a local investment agency on Tuesday.

Vietnam plans to lure fresh FDI of 41 billion dollars and 14 billion dollars worth of additional capital of operational foreign-invested projects in the five-year period, said the Foreign Investment Agency under Vietnam's Ministry of Planning and Investment.

Vietnam has targeted 5.5-6 billion dollars in realized FDI this year, up from 4.6 billion dollars last year. The country, though eyeing FDI of only 14-15 billion dollars in 2008, is much likely to attract FDI of more than 20 billion dollars this year like it did last year, said the department.

Foreign-invested enterprises in Vietnam are forecast to make total revenues of 38.8 billion dollars in 2008, up 16.5 percent against 2007. They are also predicted to gain export turnovers of 24.3 billion dollars this year, up 21.5 percent over last year.

Vietnam lured a record FDI of 20.3 billion dollars in 2007, bringing the total registered capital to 83 billion dollars with 8,590 operational FDI projects by the end of the year.