Asia is the country’s largest market, benefiting from 257 projects with a combined investment of 2.85 billion USD or 69.8 percent of the total number of projects and 64.9 percent of Vietnam ’s total overseas investment, followed by Europe, America and Africa .

The industrial sector seems to be the favoured destination for Vietnamese investment, with 155 projects worth over 3.4 billion USD and accounting for 42 percent of the number of projects and 77.8 percent of registered investment. This is followed by agriculture-forestry-fishery and services, which make up 12.7 percent and 9.5 percent of total investments, respectively.

Vietnamese businesses have demonstrated their rapid growth by shifting from small-scale investments to larger projects that involve hi-tech industries, such as oil and gas exploration and exploitation and electricity generation.

The amount of investment per project has steadily increased in recent years, with funding of up to hundreds of millions of USD for each project becoming the norm. For example, the Vietnam-Laos Investment and Electricity Development Joint-Stock Company has invested heavily in two electricity projects in Laos , providing financial muscle exceeding 714 million USD.

The Vietnam Oil and Gas Group (PetroVietnam) has also set an example by investing 243 million USD in Algeria and almost 117.4 million USD in projects in Madagascar .

Major progress has been made in terms of overseas projects, thus increasing the rate of investment disbursement to 27 percent of the total registered capital, estimated at 1.2 billion USD.

Vietnam began investing in overseas projects in 1988.