Foreign-invested enterprises (FIEs) in Vietnam have been officially permitted to invest abroad more freely with adequate legal grounds following a recent governmental decree, local media reported Monday.

Under the new decree No. 78, which is a set of revised legal documents providing guidelines for Vietnam's overseas investment, both Vietnamese enterprises and FIEs no longer fall under the case- by-case consideration by the prime minister, except several cases, Vietnam Investment Review newspaper said.

Earlier, the old similar governmental decree offered guidelines about overseas investment for only Vietnamese enterprises which can get licenses for overseas investment from either Vietnam's Ministry of Planning and Investment or the prime minister depending their scope and scale.

Lacking legal grounds, FIEs find it hard to be licensed to invest abroad. Only five FIEs have so far obtained licenses from the prime minister's case-by-case approval mechanism to implement investment projects outside Vietnam, most of the projects involve foodstuff production.

The new decree stipulates that investors in Vietnam, including both domestic and foreign-invested enterprises, can apply for overseas investment at the ministry for most cases, and should be awarded an investment certificate within 30 days since the applying date.

Cases in which Vietnamese enterprises and FIEs still need prime ministerial approval include investment in restricted or prohibited areas, investment having capital exceeding 600 billion Vietnamese dong (VND) (37.7 million U.S. dollars), and investment with capital of more than 300 billion VND (nearly 18.9 million dollars) in the fields of banking, insurance, finance, credit, media, radio, television or telecommunications.

Vietnam licensed 10 overseas investment projects with total registered capital of over 53.4 million dollars in the first seven months of this year, said the ministry's Foreign Investment Agency under the Ministry of Planning and Investment. Of the 10 projects, one involves in exploring and exploiting oil and gas in Singapore with investment of 21.9 million dollars, and another growing cash crops in Laos with registered capital of more than 12.5 million dollars.

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, the department noted.

To date, Vietnam has licensed 160 overseas investment projects with combined registered capital of over 680.4 million dollars in nearly 40 countries and regions. Laos has attracted most of the Vietnamese investment abroad.

Source: Xinhua