Hanoi raked in about 6.23 billion USD in foreign direct investment (FDI) during the first nine months of this year, continuing to lead the country in FDI attraction, according to the municipal People’s Committee.
Of the total, 503 million USD was poured into 631 new projects, while 509 million USD was added to 148 existing ones. Foreign investors injected over 5.22 billion USD into local firms via capital contributions and share purchases.
In September, the capital licenced 65 new FDI projects worth a total of 30 million USD, including 54 wholly foreign invested and 11 associate and joint venture ones. Some 20 million USD was added to 15 existing projects while about 75 million USD was contributed by foreign investors to local enterprises.
During the nine-month period, the city granted business registration certificates to over 20,560 new businesses with total registered capital exceeding 263.7 trillion VND (11.34 billion USD), up 9 percent and 28 percent year on year, respectively. The city is now home to over 273,700 companies.
According to the Hanoi People’s Committee, the results were largely owing to the city’s drastic efforts to improve the local business climate, accelerate public administrative reforms in business-related areas, bolster e-Government development and build a team of friendly and supportive civil servants.
The city’s departments and agencies have enthusiastically explored difficulties facing investors to provide them with timely support.
To utilise the advantages provided by free trade agreements, Hanoi will prioritise investment in the fields of information technology services, biotechnology, tourism, education, health care and logistics.
The city is set to lure over 7.5 billion USD in FDI in 2019. To this end, the city will continue attracting capital through public-private partnerships and FDI, while streamlining public administrative procedures for investors, said Chairman of the Hanoi People’s Committee Nguyen Duc Chung at a recent meeting.
Last year, Hanoi attracted 7.5 billion USD worth of FDI, the highest among the country’s 63 provinces and cities, and more than twice as much as the 2017 figure.
Eighty percent of the city’s projects were wholly owned by foreign investors. The remaining were associate and joint venture businesses.
FDI capital flowed the most into property development (29.5 percent of the total), processing and manufacturing industry (20.1 percent), and telecommunication and information (11.5 percent).
Japan was Hanoi’s largest investor with total capital of 10.2 billion USD. The followers included Singapore (6 billion USD) and the Republic of Korea (5.5 billion USD).
From a property-market perspective, Do Thi Thu Giang, National Director of Valuation and Advisory at Savills Vietnam, said the orientations under Resolution No. 21-NQ/TW could make the market more transparent and efficient, with property values increasingly tied to actual development and use potential.
Chinese carmakers are putting new pressure on prices and technology while testing Vietnam’s ability to retain more value.
Science and technology, innovation, digital transformation and AI must be translated into higher productivity rather than pursued as ends in themselves. At the same time, people should be placed at the centre of development, not merely viewed as a resource but as the ultimate objective of development policies.
US retail giant Target is seeking Vietnamese suppliers of household goods, home textiles, children’s products, personal care and beauty products, with a focus on companies capable of manufacturing and developing products that meet requirements on quality, design and supply chain management.
The annual event, which will be held on August 18-19, 2026, at the ICE International Exhibition Centre, 91 Tran Hung Dao Street, Hanoi, is expected to attract around 324 delegates and feature 21 booths representing credit institutions, payment intermediary service providers, and technology companies.
Vietnam should give priority to areas where it has potential to build strengths, particularly manufacturing and packaging.
Vietnam has built a solid semiconductor and electronics industry before joining ITSI, attracting major US semiconductor companies. Intel Products Vietnam is one of Intel's largest assembly and testing facilities worldwide, while chip design companies such as Synopsys, Cadence, Marvell and Qualcomm have established engineering and research centres in the Southeast Asian country.
According to the Ministry of Construction, Vietnam has around 2,500 old apartment blocks and collective housing complexes built before 1994, covering about 3 million square metres of floor space, mainly in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City. Of these, around 196 have been classified as severely deteriorated and unsafe.
Durian exports reached nearly 1.1 billion USD in the first six months of 2026, up 32% year-on-year. The industry's strongest export season, however, is still ahead.
The country's agro-forestry-aquatic product exports reached nearly 42.8 billion USD in the January–July period, up 7.5% year-on-year and equivalent to almost 60% of the annual target of 74 billion USD.
During the first seven months of 2026, Vietnam attracted more than 38 billion USD in registered FDI, up nearly 58% year-on-year. More importantly, the increase was driven by large-scale, high-tech projects rather than a surge in the number of new investments, signalling a significant improvement in the quality of capital inflows.
Manufacturing and engineering posted the strongest recruitment growth, with hiring demand surging 70% year-on-year, driven by production expansion, supply chain restructuring and sustained investment inflows in high-tech manufacturing.
Vietnam's total import-export turnover reached 659.58 billion USD in the first seven months of 2026, up 28.1% year-on-year.
The projects in Phu Quoc have been implemented under tight deadlines. Since May 2025, the Prime Minister has directed preparations for APEC 2027, including accelerated infrastructure development on the special zone. An Giang province and investors have subsequently launched a number of major projects involving complex technical requirements and demanding construction schedules.
The NSO also reported that realised FDI reached an estimated 15.2 billion USD during the January-July period, an increase of 11.8% from a year earlier and the highest seven-month disbursement recorded over the past five years.
Household deposits at banks reached a new high of 10.8 quadrillion VND (414 billion USD) at the end of May, up more than 108 trillion VND from April and increasing by 4.76% from the beginning of the year, equivalent to nearly 492 trillion VND.
The plan seeks to develop a balanced and modern financial market that is closely integrated with regional and global markets, strengthens the mobilisation and allocation of domestic and foreign capital, and enhances the market’s role as a key provider of medium- and long-term capital for the economy and as a major driver of sustained high economic growth.
Under the province's master plan for 2021–2030 with a vision to 2050, An Giang will prioritise investment in five strategic sectors: strategic infrastructure; processing industries and clean energy; trade, services, logistics and border-gate economy; high-quality tourism; and high-tech agriculture, ecological development and the circular economy.
According to the VCCI, these measures are not only necessary for managing potential risks arising from US trade actions but also crucial to enhancing competitiveness and meeting growing international expectations on compliance, product origin, quality and transparency.
Businesses say the biggest obstacle to reducing emissions and transforming production models remains the lack of financial resources needed to upgrade technologies, modernise production lines and build governance systems that comply with global sustainability standards.