Vietnam poured over 43 million U.S. dollars into eight projects abroad between January and mid-July, a local official told Xinhua Wednesday.

The projects mainly involve in exploring and exploiting oil and gas in Singapore, growing rubber trees in Laos and building a big hospital in Cambodia, said Nguyen Anh Tuan, deputy head of the Foreign Investment Agency under the Ministry of Planning and Investment. Other destinations of the projects include Malaysia and the United States.

Vietnam, which had total 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, Tuan said.

To date, the country has granted licenses to 158 overseas investment projects with a total registered capital of more than 670 million dollars in nearly 40 countries and regions. Laos has attracted most of the Vietnamese investment abroad, he noted.

Source: Xinhua