Investment drops in Vietnam

Tue, 29 Jun 1999 | Source: DPA

HANOI (DPA): Inward foreign investment in Vietnam dropped by nearly half in the first half of 1999, official estimates revealed Monday.

The US$601 million pumped into 109 new projects account for only 51.7 percent of last year's January-June period, the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) announced.

Food processing projects attracted the most investment (US$165 million), followed by communications and transport ($137 million), light industry ($68 million) and agriculture ($38 million).

Overall foreign investment approvals are also likely to fall severely to $885 million, a 38 percent drop, according to MPI data published in the Saigon Times Daily.

GDP growth had peaked a few years earlier, at 9.5 percent in 1995, down to 8.2 percent in 1997 and 3.5 percent the following year, according to the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

The IMF and others project a similar growth rate for 1999.

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