Vietnam is expected to lure 6.5 billion U.S. dollars of foreign direct investment (FDI) this year, up from nearly 5.9 billion dollars last year, official sources said on Thursday.

The anticipated hike is mainly attributed to better policies and improved infrastructure of Vietnam, said Nguyen Anh Tuan, vice head of the Foreign Investment Department under the Ministry of Planning and Investment.

Before and after joining the World Trade Organization, which is hopefully to take place late this year, Vietnam is issuing legal documents which will help create a more stable, transparent, predictable and non-discrimination investment and business climate, he said.

In July, the Unified Investment Law, applied to both foreign and domestic investors, took effect, Tuan said, noting that in the past, two separate investment laws were in use.

Vietnam's high economic growth and rapid infrastructure improvement in recent years also help it lure more FDI in 2006, he stated.

The country attracted over 2.7 billion U.S. dollars of FDI in the first six months of this year, according to the department. The ministry is considering licensing new foreign-invested projects with total registered capital of 2 billion dollars, Tuan said.

As of June 20 this year, Vietnam housed 6,390 foreign-invested projects with total capital of over 53.9 billion dollars.

Source: Xinhua