Laos is now one of the most attractive destinations for Vietnamese investors with 106 investment projects worth more than 516 million USD.

The fund takes Viet Nam’s total investment in 33 countries and territories worldwide to over 1 billion USD by May this year.

According to Lao Economic and Commercial Counselor in Viet Nam Som Vang Ninthavong, investment in Laos has helped Viet Nam become the third largest investor in Laos, after China and Thailand .

Viet Nam’s Ministry of Planning and Investment said that Viet Nam has poured large amount of money in building hydropower plants in Laos . Noteworthy is a project to build a hydropower plant, Secaman No. 3, in Sekong province with funding of over 270 million USD.

Phan Minh Tuan, Director of the International Relations Department under the Electricity of Viet Nam (EVN) said that Laos attracted the Vietnamese power industry because of its copious water sources.

“Viet Nam is focusing on areas it has strength in, for example, hydropower plant construction, mineral exploitation and exploration, and industrial crop growing,” Som Vang said, giving an example of a project to plant 10,000 hectares of rubber in Champasak province which drew over 30 million USD from Viet Nam Rubber Group.

The project was lauded as Viet Nam’s largest investment in industrial crop growing since 2005, said Le Quang Thung, General Director of the group.

He added that the Viet Nam Rubber Group has recently decided to inject more than 18 million USD into its new project to grow rubber in Laos ’s central province of Savanakhet.

“The first project is developing well so we hope the second one will be successful as scheduled,” General Director Thung said.