The agency said that fresh FDI committed in new projects totaled only US$4.7 billion, plus US$4.1 billion injected into 68 operational projects in the year to date.

The service sector fares better, with rising FDI flow into hotel, resort, restaurant, and entertainment projects. The agency reported that the service sector has attracted close to US$4.5 billion in the first six months, or over 50% of the nation’s total amount of FDI.

Of note is Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province’s Saigon Atlantis Hotel project in which Winvest LLC of the U.S. has increased its capital from US$300 million to US$4 billion. The company plans to begin work on the project this year so that the 8,000 room five-star hotel complex can open in 2011.

Vietnam has also licensed a US$500 million safari park project in Xuyen Moc District in Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province, while Charm Urban Development Co. is proceeding with a US$600 million project in the new Toc Tien urban area.

Meanwhile, some US$1.56 billion was committed to the processing and manufacturing sectors in the first six months and the real estate sector has US$1.46 billion.

Of the 305 newly-licensed projects, China Steel Sumikin Vietnam Joint Stock Company was the single largest one in the year to date with a US$1.15 billion steel mill project licensed by Ba Ria-Vung Tau Industrial Zone Authority. The province attracted most FDI in the first half with US$6.46 billion of pledged capital.

Experts said the new FDI goal for Vietnam now was to focus more on disbursements than commitments. But the target this year is difficult to achieve because several investors of newly-licensed projects tend to delay their projects due to the global recession.

According to the Foreign Investment Agency, foreign direct investment disbursements in the country totaled US$4 billion in the first six months this year compared to the annual target of some US$11 billion. Last year, some US$11.5 billion of FDI was disbursed.

Anticipating difficulties ahead, the agency has recently revised down the target of FDI disbursement this year to reach US$8 billion.

The agency said early this year that new FDI commitments might drop to US$20 billion this year, less than a third of last year’s record of US$64 billion.