According to the latest report released by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, Investors have recently started to target Vietnam while many are moving away from China due to more expensive labour costs and geopolitical risks – reports VNExpress.
Vietnam has topped an index for foreign direct investment in emerging market countries for the second year in a row, according to a study by fDi Intelligence, a Financial Times data analysis report.
A 2015 study into inbound greenfield investment in 14 emerging markets showed that Vietnam scored 6.45, which meant the country attracted more than six times the amount of foreign direct investment that might be expected relative to the size of its economy, ranking far ahead of neighbouring competitors such as Thailand (2.43) and Malaysia (2.86).
Statistics from Vietnam's Foreign Investment Agency (FIA) show that over 70 percent of total FDI projects in the first seven months of this year were manufacturing-related, meaning "the industries that drive Vietnam’s manufacturing sector until now are mainly low value-added and labor-intensive, and use low-level technologies," Huyn H. Son, a specialist for the Asian Development Bank, wrote in a recent blog.
Often, Vietnamese labour is hired especially for the final assembling of products to be exported, Pietro Masina, Associated Professor of Economics at the University of Naples "L'Orientale", Italy, told VnExpress International.
Sources
http://e.vnexpress.net/news/business/vietnam-emerges-as-a-magnet-for-foreign-direct-investment-3456519.html
http://e.vnexpress.net/news/business/data-speaks/foreign-investment-a-double-edged-sword-for-vietnam-3453584.html