Vietnam’s industrial parks and economic zones enticed 305 projects covering over 84,000 hectares and 16 economic zones covering 814,792 hectares of water and land during the first quarter with a large number of foreign investors, reported the Department for Economic Zones Management.

Regarding domestic investment, industrial parks and economic zones enticed 270 projects with total registered capital of VND6.5 trillion ($292 million) in the first three months. The projects focus mainly on luxury garment production and support industries for the textiles and engineering sectors. HCM City and Đồng Nai Province led the country in terms of investment attraction.

Some of the projects registered in Q1 included: DaYang Paper Mill Limited Company in Long Jiang Industrial Park (US$220 million); Maple Co’s (Singapore) garment factory in Bắc Ninh’s Việt Nam-Singapore Industrial Park ($110 million) and New Wing Interconnect Technology’s audiophones plant in Bắc Giang province ($100 million).

By the end of March this year, industrial and economic zones in the whole country attracted 6,608 projects with total registered foreign capital of US$145.5 billion, reported the Economic Zones Management Department. In addition, 6,592 domestically-invested projects also reached registered capital of VNĐ1.17 trillion.

Some 214 industrial zones have been operational with a total land area of nearly 60,000ha and 91 industrial parks are being developed with total natural land area of more than 24,000ha.

The total industrial land for lease reached more than 27,000ha with 49 per cent of filled land sites. Those are being operational having more than 69 per cent of filled land sites.

The Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI) has given permission for 125 existing foreign projects to increase their investment by a combined $500 million.

The MPI issued investment registration certificates for more than 160 foreign investment projects with total registered investment capital worth over $2 billion in the first quarter of 2016.