The Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) and the Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA) signed on Thursday an agreement for a project to develop a national investment information system in Viet Nam.

The total capital for the project is US$6.2 million, of which the South Korean government will grant a non-refundable aid of $5.5 million. The counterpart fund of the Vietnamese government is $700,000.

The project is expected to be implemented for four years, up to 2021. It will focus on supporting MPI in upgrading the information system; strengthening the capacity of collecting, managing and analysing national databases on investment; providing online public services to investors and granting investment certificates as well as manging the project under operation.

The system will be deployed on an integrated platform with other national information systems to improve the efficiency of information exploitation and database analysis to meet the requirements of users.

MPI’s Deputy Minister Vu Dai Thang said the agreement would be an important basis for the implementation of the next phase of the project.

MPI and KOICA pledged that the project would be successfully implemented in a timely manner, contributing to the promotion of foreign direct investment in the country in general and Korean investment in particular, consolidating the cooperation between Viet Nam and South Korea, Thang said.

According to MPI’s Foreign Investment Agency, the country has so far attracted 25,524 projects with a total registered capital of nearly $320 billion. South Korea leads among 126 countries and territories investing in Viet Nam, with more than 6,800 projects and a total registered capital surpassing $59 billion. Viet Nam attracted 420 new and expanded investment projects of Korean enterprises in the first four months of this year, with a total registered capital of over $2.3 billion. — VNS