MPI to open its ears further to foreign investor concerns

The investment disbursement wheels need to be oiled more urgently

Phan Huu Thang, chief of the Ministry of Planning and Investment’s (MPI) Foreign Investment Agency, said the ministry was drawing up plans for the first dialogue in a couple of months.

“These dialogues are not really new. The bi-annual Vietnam Business Forums have worked for foreign investors and the government to exchange information on issues relating to doing business in Vietnam,” Thang said.
The prime minister used to meet with the foreign investor community annually. However, the meetings have been cancelled since two years ago because domestic private companies are at the centre of attention.

“We [the MPI] would like to listen more to what problems foreign investors are encountering. The problems should be then resolved by both the investors and Vietnamese government agencies to facilitate foreign direct investment inflows into the country,” said Thang.

Thang said the need for opening regular dialogues came from a substantial gap between Vietnam’s foreign direct investment (FDI) and actual disbursement.

MPI figures show that FDI disbursement made up between 50 and 80 per cent of the nation’s newly registered capital in the 2000-2005 period. The ratio is however still on the wane, from almost $4 billion out of $12 billion in 2006 and $4.6 billion out of $21.6 billion in 2007.

Disbursed FDI capital reached $5 billion for the first half of this year, representing less than one-sixth of the nation’s newly registered and expanded FDI sum of $31.6 billion over the same period. The new FDI commitment between January and June this year marked a quadruple increase on a year-on-year basis whilst the disbursement rose by 38 per cent.

“For two and a half years, the growth in newly registered FDI has been much faster than that of disbursed capital. We would prefer that the latter soar robustly,” Thang said, adding that the MPI expcted $10 billion of the FDI capital disbursed across this year.