Government figures show disbursed FDI into Vietnam totaled US$2.54 billion in the first quarter of this year, up 1.6 percent from the same period last year.
Such long-term investors “believe in the strong underlying potential and believe the current macroeconomic factors to be transitory,” economist Dariusz Kowalczyk at Credit Agricole CIB said.
One key attraction is lower labor costs, encouraging foreign manufacturers to relocate from China to Vietnam, or to use it in a “China plus one” strategy of adding a second production base outside the Asian giant.
“Vietnam has very strong growth potential because of the entrepreneurship of the population,” Kowalczyk added. “People seem to be really driven to improve their lives.”



