Accounting for about 70% of total FDI capital registered for investment in Vietnam in the first two months of the year, the manufacturing and processing industry is considered a 'magnet ' attracting foreign capital.

FDI attraction increased by 35.5%

FDI attraction in the first two months of 2025 increased by 35.5% compared to the same period in 2024. How do you evaluate the above results as well as the prospects of attracting FDI in Vietnam in the coming time?

It can be said that the FDI attraction result of 6.9 billion USD, an increase of 35.5% over the same period in 2024, is a bright spot in the picture of Vietnam's economy in the first 2 months of 2025. In the context of many complicated fluctuations in the world and domestic economic situation, the global economy is witnessing a comprehensive restructuring, the domestic economy is affected by many impacts from the world economy, affecting the investment and business environment and investment attraction opportunities.

This has caused newly registered FDI capital in Vietnam to decrease by 48.4% compared to the same period in 2024. However, the registered FDI capital of licensed projects from previous years has increased dramatically, with 256 projects adjusted, with the total registered capital increased to 4.18 billion USD, 6 times higher than the same period in 2024. Along with that, capital contribution and share purchase of foreign investors in Vietnam in the first 2 months of the year also reached 529.8 million USD, an increase of 88.8% over the same period last year.

In particular, realized FDI capital - the capital flow is considered a measure of FDI efficiency in 2 months - reached 2.95 billion USD, up 5.4% over the same period last year. This is also the highest realized foreign investment capital in 2 months in the past 5 years, which further proves that Vietnam's investment environment is still very attractive to foreign enterprises.

Regarding Vietnam's prospects for attracting FDI, in my opinion, Vietnam currently has certain prospects in attracting foreign investment, especially FDI projects of large corporations with high technology content in the fields of chips and semiconductors. This opportunity comes from Vietnam's science and technology development policy in recent times. Specifically, in December 2024, General Secretary To Lam issued Resolution No. 57-NQ/TW of the Politburo on breakthroughs in science and technology development, innovation and national digital transformation. The Resolution has put forward many policies to promote the application and development of science and technology such as issuing policies to encourage investment, promote education and training, attract investment in the field of science and technology, etc.

Previously, to promote investment attraction in the high-tech sector, the Semiconductor Industry Human Resource Development Program to 2030, with a vision to 2050 approved by the Prime Minister , also set a goal that by 2030, Vietnam will train at least 50,000 human resources with university degrees or higher to serve the semiconductor industry. This is the reason why many large technology corporations have chosen Vietnam as a destination, typically the world's leading technology corporation from the United States, Nvidia.

In December 2024, Nvidia signed an agreement with the Vietnamese Government to establish an Artificial Intelligence (AI) Research and Development (R&D) Center and an AI data center in Vietnam... The presence of Nvidia and other large technology corporations in Vietnam will open up opportunities for Vietnam to attract FDI in the high-tech sector in the near future.

What is the reason why the processing and manufacturing industry attracts foreign capital?

Looking at the FDI picture in the first two months of 2025, it can be seen that the processing and manufacturing industry still creates special attraction for foreign investors. How do you evaluate this reality?

Not only in the first months of 2025, but up to now, the processing and manufacturing industry has been considered a 'magnet' attracting foreign capital. In the first two months of 2025, if including newly registered capital and adjusted registered capital of licensed projects from previous years, the registered foreign direct investment capital in the processing and manufacturing industry reached 4.51 billion USD, accounting for 70.8% of the total newly registered and increased capital.

In addition, in the first two months of the year, Vietnam's processing and manufacturing industry also attracted nearly 200 million USD of FDI capital through capital contributions and share purchases by foreign investors, thus the processing and manufacturing industry has attracted about 4.7 billion USD of FDI capital since the beginning of the year.

Notably, not only dominating in registered FDI capital, in the first two months of the year, FDI capital implemented in the processing and manufacturing industry also reached 2.42 billion USD, accounting for 82.1% of total FDI capital implemented in Vietnam. This is a significant amount of capital, showing the attractiveness of the processing and manufacturing industry.

The reason why the processing and manufacturing industry is attractive to foreign investors is because Vietnam is still in the golden population period, with an abundant, highly skilled workforce. Vietnamese workers are eager to learn and adapt quickly to the new context. In addition, the investment environment in Vietnam in recent years has attracted many of the world's leading industrial corporations to invest, operate in production and business and achieve certain successes, for example: Samsung Group, LG, Canon, Honda, Toyota... These corporations have and will attract a large number of satellite enterprises operating in the processing and manufacturing industry to invest in Vietnam.

In addition to the above reasons, the policy of attracting foreign investment to Vietnam in recent years has been assessed as open, creating favorable conditions for foreign investors to come to production and business activities. This is also an important factor that helps Vietnam attract many FDI projects in the processing and manufacturing industry.

Attracting many FDI projects in the processing and manufacturing industry is considered a great success for Vietnam. This will be a good opportunity for Vietnam to achieve the goal of becoming a developing country with modern industry and high average income by 2030. By 2045, it will become a developed country with high income as the goal set out in the Resolution of the 13th National Party Congress.

Vietnam is targeting growth of 8% or more by 2025 and double-digit growth in the 2026-2030 period. So to achieve the above target, what solutions do we need to increase the contribution of the FDI sector to economic growth, sir?

The economic growth target of 8% or more in 2025 and double digits in the 2026-2030 period is a challenging target, but in my opinion, Vietnam has every chance to achieve it if we know how to take advantage of growth drivers from foreign direct investment; promote the capacity of the domestic private enterprise sector and focus on disbursing public investment capital right from the first months of the year.

With the driving force from the FDI sector, in recent years this sector has made positive contributions to Vietnam's economic growth, however, this contribution is still assessed below potential because the attraction and management of foreign investment activities still have shortcomings, limitations and new problems arising. Institutions and policies on foreign investment have not kept up with development requirements. Incentive policies are still scattered, inconsistent and unstable. Although the investment and business environment and competitiveness have been improved, they are still limited; the quality and efficiency of attracting and managing foreign investment are not high.

Socio-economic infrastructure and high-quality human resources have not met requirements; essential cultural and social institutions are lacking. The mechanism and capacity for effective and efficient dispute resolution are not high. The organizational system and capacity for attracting and managing foreign investment are still inadequate and fragmented, failing to meet requirements, lacking initiative and professionalism.

The number of small-scale, low-tech, labor-intensive projects is still large; uneven distribution; the ratio of implemented capital to registered capital is still low. The proportion of contributions to the state budget tends to decrease. Links and interactions with other sectors of the economy are not tight, spillover effects on productivity and technology are not high; the localization rate is still low...

To overcome the above shortcomings and increase the contribution of the FDI sector to economic growth, Resolution 50/NQ-TW of the Politburo on orientations for perfecting policies and improving the quality and efficiency of foreign investment cooperation by 2030 has clearly stated that Vietnam needs to focus on perfecting institutions and general policies on foreign investment; policies on investment attraction; perfecting institutions and policies to protect and promote the responsibility of investors as well as managing and supervising FDI attraction; innovating and improving the effectiveness of investment promotion; improving the effectiveness and efficiency of state management of foreign investment...

Thank you!