Foreign direct investment to Vietnam up 74 pct in Jan.

HANOI, Jan. 29 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam attracted nearly 281.5 million U.S. dollars from the foreign direct investment (FDI) in the first month of the year, an increase of 74 percent year-on- year, the Vietnam General Statistics Office (GSO) reported on Tuesday.

During the month, 37 FDI new projects have been licensed, with total registered capital of 257.1 million dollars, down 9.8 percent in the number of projects, but up 293.6 percent in value compared to the same period last year. In addition, nine on-going projects have expanded their capital of 24.34 million dollars.

The FDI projects disbursed about 420 million dollars in January, up 5 percent year-on-year.

The processing and manufacturing sector attracted the most FDI with 203 million dollars, accounting for 72.1 percent of the total registered amount, followed by the real estate sector with 50 million dollars and 17.8 percent respectively.

Ten cities and provinces nationwide had new FDI projects registered in January, of which southern Dong Nai province attracted the most with 107.9 million dollars, making up 42 percent of the country's total newly registered capital, followed by northern Haiphong port city with 66.4 million dollars (25.6 percent), southern Binh Duong province with 61.6 million dollars ( 20.2 percent), capital Hanoi with 13.6 million dollars and Ho Chi Minh City with 13.5 million dollars.

Among 17 countries and territories having newly licensed projects in Vietnam in January, Japan was the largest investor, with new and expanded capital of over 157.7 million dollars ( accounting for 57.6 percent of the newly registered capital), followed by Thailand with 54.3 million dollars (21.1 percent) and France with 20 million dollars.

Last year, Vietnam attracted 13 billion dollars from the FDI and disbursed about 10.5 billion dollars, according to the GSO.