Lee & Mans Begins Paper Mills in Vietnam
Hong Kong-based Lee & Man Paper Manufacturing today kicked off construction of paper and pulp mills, which it will pour total US$680 million, in Chau Thanh district, Mekong Delta Hau Giang province.
Construction on the mills will be carried out by Lee & Man Vietnam Paper and Lee & Man Pulp, two subsidiaries of the group which received their 50-year operations investment licenses from provincial authorities on June 27.
Accordingly, the companies will pump US$280 million into building paper mill with total capacity of 420,000 tons a year and US$348 million into pulp mill which is designed at 330,000 tons a year.
The mills, which are scheduled to come operational from Oct 2008, are seen as a massive boost to domestic production capacity as to date the entire national paper output hits around 1.13 million tons and paper pulp production sits at 905,000 tons yearly.
Lee & Man said it is exempt from profits tax for four consecutive years; for the nine years after that, it only needs to pay half of the profits tax.
Vietnam is estimated to import around 914,000 tons of paper and 232,000 tons of pulp to meet domestic demand in 2007. (VNA)
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