HO CHI MINH CITY, March 30 (Xinhua) -- Vietnam's Ho Chi Minh City licensed 180 foreign direct investment (FDI) projects with total registered capital of over 215 million U.S. dollars in the first quarter of this year, posting a year-on-year surge of 52.8 percent in value, the provincial Planning and Investment Department said Friday.

Meanwhile, 297 operational FDI projects in the city raised their capital by a total of over 113.5 million dollars, and 530 foreign investors spent more than 951 million dollars purchasing stakes in Vietnamese companies.

Of the 951 million dollars, 46.6 percent were involved in real estates, 19 percent in science and technology, and 8.5 percent on travel services.

Between January and March, Vietnam licensed 618 FDI projects with total registered capital of over 2.1 billion U.S. dollars, down 27.3 percent, and saw 199 operational FDI projects raise their capital by roughly 1.8 billion dollars in total, down 54.6 percent.

In the same period, foreign investors spent nearly 1.9 billion dollars buying stocks of, or contributing capital to operational Vietnamese companies, up 121.6 percent, said the country's Foreign Investment Agency.