Twenty years ago, Vietnam started its renovation whereby a main emphasis is expanding international cooperation, integrating into the regional and international economy. Under such policies, in 1987 the Vietnam National Assembly adopted the Law on Foreign Investment with quite open provisions. Since then, this Law has been amended, supplemented four times. The latest amendments are contained in the Investment Law (effective July 1, 2006). The Investment Law and Decree 108/2006/ND-CP dated September 22, 2006, stipulating in detail guidelines on implementation of the Investment Law and Decree 101/2006/ND-CP dated 21/09/2006 stipulating re-registration, changes and registration for change of certificates of foreign investment under the Enterprise Law and Investment Law establish a more and more attractive and gradually complete environment to narrow the gap between domestic and foreign investment, establish a legal basis, and convenient investment conditions for domestic and foreign enterprises.

Moreover, the Enterprise Law that went into effect on 1/7/2006 establishes a uniform legal frame applicable to enterprises of all economic sectors and simplifies procedures, reduces costs of market entering. The combination and unification of business registration and investment registration assist domestic and foreign investors in registering their business together with investment if their business registration is attached to a particular investment project. Meanwhile, there are additional regulations on state management over enterprises to prevent, restrict the enterprise establishment for non-business purposes, the danger of non-operative enterprises with no dissolution procedures under the laws … then to make the business environment healthier.

Years of government effort in improving the business environment has brought about Vietnam’s achieving encouraging results and establishing a quite attractive investment environment for foreign investors.

According to Ministry of Planing and Investment of Vietnam, Vietnam attracted 839 licensed FDI projects in 2009 with total registered investment capital of US$16,345.4 billion. The United States was the largest FDI source within the period, with registered investment capital of US$5.9 billion. And in the fisrt half of 2010, total foreign direct investment was USD 8.4 billion, with 438 newly registered investment projects.