Aug. 27 – The United States has become the top foreign direct investor in Vietnam for the first eight months of the year with investments amounting close to US$4 billion.

The head of the statistics division of Vietnam’s Foreign Investment Agency, Le Hai Van, was quoted by Earth Times as saying that U.S. companies contributed 37 percent of foreign investment in Vietnam through August.

This is in comparison to last year’s figure when the United States only contributed 3 percent to Vietnam’s US$46.3 billion in FDI. Investment coming from the United States have been mostly in the service sector, namely the hotel and tourism industry.

U.S. investment in Vietnam for the year  has surpassed money coming from South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, Japan and Singapore. After the United States, Taiwan is the second largest foreign investor in the country with US$1.35 billion followed by South Korea with US$1.2 billion.

Vietnam’s service sector is the top destination of FDI funds amounting to US$4.6 billion dollars. Meanwhile, the processing industry finishes at second place with US$2.3 billion.

This year has been rough for Vietnam with FDI plunging by 73 percent to US$10.5 billion compared to the same period last year.