Paper Title
A Trend Analysis of Inward FDI between Vietnam and Bangladesh: Identifying How Vietnam is Doing Better

Abstract
Bangladesh and Vietnam are two competing emerging economies of Asia who were export-focused on the same industrial sector (Ready Made Garments) for decades now and have been at heels of the other. Both acquired remarkable success in repairing and building their economy but now Bangladesh is significantly lagging behind Vietnam in terms of attracting inward flow of FDI. As Bangladesh plans to graduate from their Least Developed Country (LDC) status by 2026, aims to reach the SDGs by 2030 and come out as an upper-middle-income country by 2031, it is of utmost importance to learn how their international competitors are performing better in attracting FDI and why they cannot. This paper firstly compares the FDI inflow trends of Vietnam and Bangladesh by running a two sample independent t-test. The result showed that there is a statistically significant difference in the average FDI inflow between the countries. This paper also looks into the factors that assisted Vietnam succeed in attracting FDI from a literature based qualitative approach, and the factors are Vietnam’s 'Doi Moi' economic reform policy, an open trade policy, an inexpensive labor force, a high rank in ease of doing business index, FTAs (Free Trade Area) and PTAs (Preferential Trade Agreement) with developed nations and export diversification. Lastly, the paper tries to identify the factors that cause Bangladesh to lag behind and they are a lack of proper implementation of policy reforms, lack of good governance, lack of automation and training of the labor force, a low rank in ease of doing business index (falling behind Vietnam in indicators such as ‘Dealing with Construction Permits’, ‘Registering Property’, ‘Getting Electricity’ and ‘Enforcing Contracts’), failure to join more FTAs and PTAs with important trading partners and an export basket heavily concentrated on RMG and knitwear products. Keywords - Bangladesh, Vietnam, Inward FDI, Export Diversification, Doing Business