Business and investment prospects and opportunities with the US in thesouthern key economic region was the theme of a Vietnam-US businessforum held in Ho Chi Minh City on December 16.

The region, including Ho Chi Minh City and Dong Nai, Binh Duong, BaRia-Vung Tau, Tay Ninh, Binh Phuoc, Long An and Tien Giang provinces,accounts for 60 percent of the State budget and over 70 percent of thecountry’s export turnover. The region is now leading the country inForeign Direct Investment (FDI) attraction.

At theforum, Deputy Director of the HCM City Economic Institute Nguyen ThiengDuc said the region has the advantage in industry, hi-tech, electronics,information technology, oil and gas technologies and petrochemicalproducts as well as high-end services such as finance and banking,telecoms and tourism.

According to the Ministry ofPlanning and Investment, by August 2010, the US had 544 investmentprojects in Vietnam with a total registered capital of 16.4 billionUSD, ranking sixth among 92 countries and territories investing in thecountry.

In the first nine months of this year, USinvestment reached nearly 1.8 billion USD, accounting for 15.7 percentof the total newly registered capital, and was poured mainly into BaRia-Vung Tau, Dong Nai and Binh Duong provinces and Ho Chi Minh City .

Areas that US businesses focus on include services, hotel tourism, industry, construction, and agro-forestry-fisheries.

Two-way trade between Vietnam and the US has continuouslyincreased over the past years. The US remains Vietnam ’s largestexport market with an export turnover reaching 9.1 billion USD in thefirst eight months of 2010, up 25. 7 percent compared with the sameperiod last year.

Vietnam exports mainly garments,footwear, wood and wooden products and seafood to the US , whileimporting machinery, equipment, cattle feed and materials from the NorthAmerican country./.