Vietnam has topped a performance index for greenfield foreign direct investment (FDI) for the second year in a row, leading all other emerging economies by a wide margin.

The Southeast Asian nation came top in the second annual study of 14 emerging markets by FDI Intelligence, a Financial Times data division, which looked at inbound greenfield investment in 2015 relative to the size of each country’s economy.

Vietnam scored 6.45, far ahead of next placed Hungary (4.32) and Romania (3.48), and its regional competitors Malaysia (2.86) and Thailand (2.43).

The health sector has been a big attraction to FDI in Vietnam since the government loosened the regulations on foreign investment. According to international accreditation organisations, Vietnam’s pharmaceutical industry will grow up to 75% from now until 2020.

As reported by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), global investors are paying increasing attention to the “developing Asian region”, with investment into developing Asian nations accounting for US$541 billion of the total US$765 billion in the 2015 FDI figure, focusing mainly on the three markets: Vietnam, Myanmar and India.

Nhan Dan