Vietnam invested nearly 34.5 million U. S. dollars in five projects abroad in the first four months of this year, an official told Xinhua Wednesday.

Most of the projects were implemented in the fields of oil and gas exploration and exploitation, house utensil and construction material production, said Nguyen Anh Tuan, vice head of the Foreign Investment Agency under the Ministry of Planning and Investment.

Vietnam, which poured an investment of over 367 million dollars abroad in 2005, mainly in Laos, Russia, Cambodia and Indonesia, is expected to annually invest 200 million dollars abroad between 2006 and 2010, he said.

To date, the country has granted licenses to 153 overseas investment projects in 33 countries and regions involving over 655 million dollars. Laos attracted most of Vietnamese investment abroad with over 364 million dollars, followed by Iraq with 100 million dollars.

Of the investment abroad, 505.5 million dollars have been poured into the industrial sector, 81.9 million dollars in the agricultural one.

Source: Xinhua