Hanoi (VNA) – A proposal to speed up the disbursement rate of foreign direct investment (FDI) capital is being considered by the Ministry of Planning and Investment (MPI).

With the number of projects and registered capital on the increase, especially since Viet Nam joined the World Trade Organisation, it is hoped the scheme will break slow FDI disbursement.

Foreign Investment Department (FID) Head, Phan Huu Thang said the proposal classifies and puts forward assistance policies suitable to projects in each locality, with priorities given to key ones that have great impact on localities and regions.

According to the MoPI, 43 billion USD in FDI was disbursed during 1988-2007, accounting for 52.2 percent of the total registered capital.

The slow disbursement rate was attributed to land compensation and ground clearance, Thang said.

According to a recent survey of 140 FDI enterprises conducted by the Central Economic Management Research Institute, 20 percent said the reason for their slow disbursement was due to changes in Vietnam ’s policies, and 17 percent said it was due to difficulties in procedures and administration. Another 17 percent said their slow disbursement was because the investment environment was not as favourable as they had first thought, and the remaining said it was due to the holding companies’ change in business strategies.

FDI’s Head Thang said Viet Nam is striving to assist the disbursement of more than 7 billion USD this year, 2 billion USD more than last year’s figure.

In a press briefing held at the end of last year, Minister of Planning and Investment Vo Hong Phuc said that speeding up the disbursement rate is a key ministry task in 2008 alongside selecting investment projects to benefit economic development.

As a result, the ministry only set a modest target of attracting 15 billion USD in FDI, 5 billion USD less than last year’s figure.

Thang said the international community shows a keen interest in Vietnam , adding there are more and more large-scaled foreign invested projects in the nation.

Vietnam attracted 5.43 billion USD and disbursed 1.68 billion USD in the first quarter of this year, a year-on-year rise of 24 percent.