Real estate will attract lucrative foreign direct investments in 2015with the market recovering and Vietnam set to join the Trans-PacificPartnership agreement and other free trade pacts.

The Ministry ofPlanning and Investment's Foreign Investment Agency (FIA) announcedthis week that as of March 20, there were 475 foreign direct investment(FDI) projects in the real estate sector with a combined capital of 48.4billion USD.

Singapore took the lead in FDI in Vietnam propertywith 75 projects and a 10-billion-USD capital, followed by the Republicof Korea with about 82 projects worth nearly 7 billion USD, and BritishVirgin Islands with 66 projects worth 6.1 billion USD. Other majorinvestors included Malaysia, Canada, Hong Kong and the United States.

Inthe real estate sector, HCM City received the maximum FDI with morethan 190 projects and a 13.4-billion-USD capital, followed by Hanoi with92 projects valued at 8 billion USD and Ba Ria-Vung Tau with 10projects worth 6.1 billion USD. The next were Binh Duong, Quang Nam,Dong Nai and Hai Phong provinces.

According to the FIA, 66.5percent of all FDI projects in the property sector were wholly foreigninvestments, 30 percent were joint ventures, and the remainder was jointstock companies and business co-operation contracts.

The agencysaid many economic policies had been more open this year, with therevision of real estate, investment and enterprise laws, and they hadenabled more foreign investors to take part in the domestic realtymarket.-VNA