BUSINESS IN BRIEF 28/2Two-month FDI disbursement up 9.7 percentDisbursement of foreign direct investment (FDI) increased by 9.7 percent to 1.7 billion USD in the first two months of 2018. Of this total, 1.83 billion USD came from manufacturing and processing firms, accounting for 54.6 percent of the nation’s total registered capital. Construction ranked second with 345.4 million USD and estate trading ranked third with 312.1 million USD. The country’s gross domestic product (GDP) expanded 6.7 percent last year with the total volume of trade reaching a record 425 billion USD, of which exports accounted for 200 billion USD. Vietnamese businesses need to focus on improving product quality, diversifying export items, increasing export of value-added products and building brands for their products.