The information in this report includes; the number and type of project proposals received, proposed projects by sector, proposed volumes (in Vatu) of investment, proposed number of employment, location of projects and investors by country of origin. Private: Refers to applications approved by VIPA Board to invest in an existing business.

Projects

A total of 54 projects were approved by VIPA during the Second (2nd) Quarter 2006 of which 36 are new projects, 3 private investments and 15 variations. Moreover the second quarter also showed an increase of 29 percent over same quarter previous year in the number of new projects received. Torba province also registered 2 percent of the overall number of projects received during the second quarter of 2006.

Proposed Employment

During the Second (2nd) quarter of 2006, VIPA registered a proposal for 594 local and 56 foreign employments from the approved projects.

Proposed Investment

Investment by Country and Sector

The Second (2nd) quarter indicated that projects coming from Australia recorded the highest proposed value of about 76.4 percent of the total investment and recorded the highest proposed number in terms of employment opportunities of 68.4 percent. Figure 3 below indicated an increase of 31 percent over previous quarter (1st Quarter 2006) and also showed an increase of 29 percent over same quarter previous year. The second quarter of 2006 indicated an increase of 51 percent compared to previous quarter (1st Quarter 2006) and also showed an increase of 37 percent over same period previous year.

Proposed Value of investments.

The proposed value of investment in the 2nd quarter of 2006 saw a significant increase of 60 percent over previous quarter but a drop of 4 percent over same quarter previous year as shown on figure 5. The table below showed the overall quarterly number of projects, Employment and Value of Investments from 1st quarter 2003 to 2nd quarter 2006.

Table 2. Projects, Employments & Value of investments, 2003-2006