Despite foreign direct investment (FDI) shown signs of a slowdown as a result of the negative impact of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), experts believe that the nation will be able to welcome an array of fresh dual investment after the pandemic. According to the Ministry of Planning and Investment’s Foreign Investment Agency (FIA), the country attracted US$12.33 billion in FDI in the first four months of 2020, an annual fall of 15.5% due to the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic.
HCMC is moving toward becoming a smart city, the city’s chairman Nguyen Thanh Phong told Nguoi Lao Dong newspaper on the sidelines of a meeting on May 5. Phong noted that the smart city model is an initiative that the city has been working out for the past two years, with significant successes recorded in the first phase, which runs from 2017 until the end of 2020.
Through early and efficient border closures, uncharacteristic official transparency and strategic Covid-19 diplomacy, communist-run Vietnam is fast emerging as a likely post-pandemic winner. For a nation that has long-sought to secure it’s place as a reliable and responsible global actor, the coronavirus outbreak and its minimal impact on Vietnam has presented the nation an opportunity in crisis analysts say it is firmly grasping.
Kenneth Atkinson, founder and senior board adviser at Grant Thornton Vietnam, shares with Bich Ngoc his opinion on the future for Vietnam’s second home market. Vietnam has been one of the top-performing inbound tourism markets over the last few years. In January, the country received just under 2 million foreign visitors in one month alone. Much of this rapid increase in inbound tourists has come from China, South Korea, and Japan, who together have contributed more than 50 per cent to the inbound tourism market.
For newcomers that recently joined the market such as Singapore, Malaysia, Philippines, resort-casino complex model has been leading to powerful transformations in many aspects, including the change in investment demand and property values. According to Colliers International, up to late 2017, villa prices at many resort-casino complexes in Manila (Philippines), has increased by 30pct year-on-year, for example.
