The southern metropolis granted licences to about 180 new FDI projects which have total investment of over 215 million USD, up 52.8 percent year-on-year.

The processing-manufacturing industry raked in the largest amount of 82.22 million USD, a 23-fold surge year-on-year. It was followed by the sale, repair of automobiles, motors, motorbikes and other vehicles which drew in 63.38 million USD, up 41.1 percent year-on-year. Real estate came third with 48.32 million USD, up 6.4 percent.

Norway was the biggest investor who invested 70.08 million USD or 32.6 percent. It was followed by the Republic of Korea, 53.38 million USD; and Singapore, 41.72 million USD.

In the first quarter of 2018, total investment of more than 113.5 million USD was added into 297 operational projects while some 530 foreign investors were permitted to purchase shares, worth over 951 million USD, from domestic companies.

According to Director of the municipal Department of Planning and Investment Su Ngoc Anh, the foreigners’ share purchase was five times higher than that of the same period last year, mostly in the fields of real estate (46.6 percent), science and technology (19 percent) and travel services (8.5 percent).

Ho Chi Minh City continued providing online services for registering foreign investment and share purchase in the first three months of this year. More than 480 online applications were successfully processed.

About 8,000 businesses were newly registered during the period with the total capital of nearly 100.4 trillion VND (4.42 billion USD).