Vietnamese businesses have shifted their overseas investment projects to the services sector and are looking towards new potential markets.
According to the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI), among 38 overseas investment projects capitalised at 170 million USD in the first four months of this year, many were poured into construction service, online games, trade centres and restaurants, investment consultancy services and real estate instead of agriculture, mining and industrial tree-planting as before.
This is a big difference in the overseas investment trend for Vietnamese businesses compared to previous years.
The shift in investment flows to the service sector is clearly seen in the Cambodian and Lao markets, which attract the largest investment from Vietnamese enterprises. In the first four months of this year, Cambodia has become home to the two largest Vietnamese-invested projects, including a reforestation project by the Duc Nhan Joint Stock Company and the another to set up a branch of the Vietnam Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development.
In addition, memoranda of understanding in the fields of banking, telecommunications services and trade centre business were signed by Vietnamese and Myanmar partners during Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung’s visit early this month.
Besides traditional markets, Vietnam’s overseas investment projects have also been seen in countries and territories that are major investors in Vietnam , such as Japan , the US , the Republic of Korea and Singapore . The US market is also emerging with nine projects, mainly focusing on real estate, hotels, tourism and seafood processing.
According to several MPI experts, although the size of almost all projects in the service sector is small--around 1 million USD--the possibility of service exports through bidding, purchase and merger activities is opening up opportunities for Vietnamese businesses to enter deeper and reap higher added values in some foreign markets.
In the next 5-10 years, there will be a boom in Vietnamese-invested projects in both new markets and traditional destinations, they forecast.
According to the MPI’s statistics, in 2009, Vietnam’s total overseas investment capital reached a record of 7.73 billion USD, allocated in 51 countries and territories worldwide./.