Vietnam has so far this year lured foreign direct investment (FDI) of 19.6 billion U.S. dollars, showing a year-on-year decline of 8 percent, according to its Foreign Investment Agency on Wednesday.

Specifically, the country licensed 2,182 fresh FDI projects with a total registered capital of some 14.1 billion U.S. dollars, down 3 percent in registered capital, while seeing 841 operational FDI projects increase their capital by 5.5 billion U.S. dollars, down 17.9 percent against the same period last year.

In the period, foreign investors also spent nearly 5.8 billion U.S. dollars buying shares or contributing capital to Vietnamese firms, up 36.8 percent.

Among the total foreign investment of nearly 25.4 billion U.S. dollars in the nine-month period, 44.6 percent was poured into the local processing and manufacturing sector, 23 percent in real estate trading, and 8.3 percent in wholesales and retails, said the agency under the Ministry of Planning and Investment.

Among localities nationwide, the capital city of Hanoi got the biggest amount of foreign investment of 5.8 billion U.S. dollars, accounting for 22.9 percent of the total, followed by Ho Chi Minh City with 16.6 percent and the southern province of Ba Ria Vung Tau with 8.5 percent.

Japan was the biggest investor with 7 billion U.S. dollars, making up 27.6 percent of the total, tailed by South Korea with 22.4 percent, and Singapore with 14.4 percent.

From January to September, realized capital of FDI projects in Vietnam stood at nearly 13.3 billion U.S. dollars, up 6 percent on-year, the agency said. Enditem