According to the Ministry of Planning and Investment’s Foreign Investment Agency (FIA), the country licensed 658 new projects with combined registered capital of 14.05 billion USD, which FIA said was a big figure in the context of economic crisis, though it was only equivalent to 25 percent of the same period last year. Besides, 179 existing projects were permitted to increase capital totalised 4.87 billion USD to their capital.

Thanks to investment promotion campaigns implemented at home and abroad, FDI attraction in 2009 is expected to surpass 20 billion USD and keeps increasing in the next years.

Since the Foreign Investment Law came into effect in 1987, the country has attracted 174.7 billion USD in foreign investment, with 10,805 valid projects.