Viet Nam invested nearly US$316.4 million abroad in the first five months of this year, equivalent to 93.5 per cent of the figure recorded in the same period last year, according to the Foreign Investment Agency under the Ministry of Planning and Investment.

Of the total, $142.7 million was poured into 47 new projects, or 48.6 per cent of the figure in the corresponding period in 2022 while $173.7 million was added to 16 underway ones, nearly four times the figure of last year's first five months.

Vietnamese investors abroad invested in 13 sectors, especially retail and wholesale, information and communications, finance, banking, agro-forestry-fisheries.

In the January-May period, Vietnamese investments landed in 20 countries and territories, led by Canada with one new and one expanded project worth over $150.2 million. It was followed by Singapore, Laos, and Cuba.

The agency said that as of May 20, Viet Nam had operated 1,648 valid projects abroad with combined investment of nearly $22.1 billion, including 141 by State-owned enterprises worth $11.67 billion, accounting for 52.8 per cent of the country’s total.

Vietnamese investment abroad is mostly in mining (31.5 per cent) and agro-forestry-fisheries (15.6 per cent).

Leading destinations for Vietnamese investors has so far been Laos (24.4 per cent), Cambodia (13.3 per cent), and Venezuela (8.3 per cent). — VNS