France, a former colonial power with which the first Indochina war was fought, has invested 2.9 billion dollars.
Even China, another country with which Vietnam has fought for independence in its early history and relations are occasionally strained, has invested 3.
7 billion dollars in the country.
Vietnam's close Asian neighbors are among its top investors.
In 2010, Vietnam, which has a population of 87 million people, or about four and a halft times that of Sri Lanka, realized 11 billion dollars in foreign direct investments. New sign-ups were worth 18.5 billion dollars. Sri Lanka attracted 516 million dollars of FDI in 2010.
In the first six months of 2011 alone realized FDI was 8.2 billion US dollars in Vietnam.
'Their failures are ours'
"With regard to foreign investments, we have foreign investment from about 100 countries in the world including the former foes," President Sang said.
"They are now all friends of Vietnam and they share the wish to deve