Ban Won Ik, deputy chair of the The Association of High Potential Enterprises of Korea  (AHPEK), confirmed that there is a strong South Korean investment wave in Vietnam. 

With large investment projects, South Korean investors now play an important role in some of Vietnam’s key business fields, including electronics industry, energy, automobile manufacturers, textiles & garments and construction.

However, real estate & construction is the field which the three Asian investors are most interested. 

Japanese Nomura Real Estate Asia has unexpectedly acquired 24 percent of capital in A-class Sunwah Tower. 

Analysts said the value of the deal must be very high, if noting that the building is located on Nguyen Hue Road in the central business district 1 of HCMC, where large financial institutions such as Citi Bank, VinaCapital and Bank of China have their offices.

Prior to that, Japanese Mitsubishi bought 11,000 square meters of office area in Le Meridien Complex. The well-known A-class office building A&B Tower has also fallen in the hands of a Japanese investor.

While Japanese investors prefer offices for leasing thanks to stable profits (7-8 percent), Singaporeans target more complex assets, including commercial projects combined with housing.

CapitaLand has acquired the 9,000 square meter ‘golden land plot’ in Tay Ho district in Hanoi, while Keppel Land has spent $11.4 million for 10 percent more of shares in Saigon Sports City residential quarter project.

In the first five months of the year, total foreign direct investment in Vietnam reached $9.9 billion, more than half of which went to processing & manufacturing industries and 10.8 percent to the real estate sector. 

The three biggest foreign investors in the first five months of the year were South Korea (26.5 percent), Japan (15.4 percent) and Singapore (11.25 percent).

Emerging China

Vietnam recently has begun receiving FDI flow from China, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan. Some analysts said with strong financial capability, the cash flow is very likely to lead the game in the coming years.

In 2012, China only ranked 13th among 100 foreign investors in Vietnam. But there are now more Chinese-invested projects in many key cities and provinces of Vietnam.

In HCMC, Hong Kong Land has acquired projects in Thu Thiem new urban area and the central area.

In the central region, the resort-casino project of the joint venture of Chow Tai Fook, Suncity Group and Vinacapital is worth $4 billion.

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