Inside a foreign-invested firm at Quang Minh industrial park, Hanoi (Photo: VNA)

The disbursed investment was recorded at over 12.55 billion USD, up 8.4% as compared to the same time last year.

Foreign investors injected 10.76 billion USD in 1,816 new projects, rising 35.6% and 11.6%, respectively.

Meanwhile, 734 projects had their capital adjusted up with a total amount of more than 10.76 billion USD, down 0.3% in the project number, and up 19.4% in capital year-on-year.

Capital contributions and share purchases fell 45.2% to 2.27 billion USD.

The agency said that foreign investors funneled their money in 18 out of 21 economic sectors, with the processing and manufacturing industry attracting the largest share of over 12.65 billion USD, or 70.3% of the total. The realty sector came second with more than 2.87 billion USD, wholesale and retail sale industry third with nearly 740.5 million USD, and professional activities and science-technology fourth with over 490.6 million USD.

Registering 6.52 billion USD, Singapore was the biggest investor among 91 countries and territories investing in the nation in the reviewed period, followed by China’s Hong Kong, Japan, China and the Republic of Korea.

The foreign investors landed their capital in 48 cities and provinces across the nation. Bac Ninh attracted the largest amount of foreign capital with nearly 3.2 billion USD while in the second and third places were Quang Ninh and Ho Chi Minh City, luring over 1.56 billion USD and 1.55 billion USD, respectively.

The foreign-invested sector enjoyed a trade surplus of around 27.9 billion USD (including crude oil), and contributed greatly to the nation’s trade surplus of 12.4 billion USD during the seven-month period.

As of July 20, Vietnam was home to 40,777 valid foreign projects with total registered capital of 487 billion USD. Some 309.7 billion USD was disbursed by the time./.