Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund GIC is set to acquire a 7.73 per cent stake on a fully enlarged basis in Joint Stock Commercial Bank for Foreign Trade of Vietnam (Vietcombank), Vietcombank announced August 29.

By the end of last month, Vietnam had attracted nearly US$13 billion from foreign direct investment (FDI), a year-on-year increase of 47%.

VietNamNet Bridge - Many foreign-invested projects in Vietnam have been operating with capital borrowed from Vietnamese banks.

VietNamNet Bridge - The fact that Chinese businesses play tricks to obtain land in ‘sensitive areas’ in Vietnam has raised concerns about security and national defence.

Seven months after the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) was officially established, the Vietnamese market is flooded with Thai and Malaysian goods. But Vietnamese goods are still largely absent from the ASEAN market.

VietNamNet Bridge - Local planning and investment departments have released a series of warrants looking for foreign investors after discovering that they had disappeared from their given addresses.

VietNamNet Bridge - Local newspapers last week reported that Apple had been looking for investment locations in Da Nang City.

VietNamNet Bridge - Despite warnings and punishments, enterprises have been using sophisticated methods to ignore regulations, damaging the environment and putting rivers in the Mekong Delta at risk.

VietNamNet Bridge - Foreign businesses have invested in their own companies but have also contributed capital to thousands of Vietnamese companies.

Credit rose 8.54 per cent by July 29 against late last year while mobilised capital surged 9.94 per cent, the State Bank of Vietnam reported August 11.

VietNamNet Bridge - Many investors from Asia have poured capital into the Mekong Delta region, but the investment in agriculture remains modest. 

VietNamNet Bridge - Investors' reports on the possible environment impact of their projects are often vague and cursory, but government agencies frequently approve them.

VietNamNet Bridge - Vietnamese commercial banks have been taking cautious steps to exploit foreign markets in an effort to seek new business opportunities.

Official reports show an increase in foreign direct investment (FDI) in the real estate sector, as a number of mergers & acquisitions (M&A) deals and investment from Singaporean tycoons have been made recently. 

VietNamNet Bridge - Vietnamese tycoons in cement and transport, steel and securities companies all have shown their interest in real estate projects recently. 

VietNamNet Bridge - Many foreign-invested projects in textile, paper, dying, steel and other polluting industries have been licensed recently, raising concerns that Vietnam would become a ‘pollution paradise’.  

VietNamNet Bridge - After joining WTO, Vietnam laid the red carpet out to welcome foreign investors with huge investment projects worth billions of dollars. But some of these projects never started or have lost licenses.  

 VietNamNet Bridge – Viet Nam’s economic growth in 2016 will be affected by many factors. General Director of the Viet Nam Statistics Office, Nguyen Bich Lam, speaks to business news website BNEWS

Dau Tu last week reported that Compal’s plan on reviving the $500 million project in Ba Thien Industrial Zone (IZ) in Vinh Phuc province has not started, and the fate of the factory remains unclear.

VietNamNet Bridge - Investors from South Korea have been topping the list of foreign investors in Vietnam in the last two years.