Vietnam's biggest garment and textile producer and exporter will invest over one billion U.S. dollars in developing its production, distribution system and material growing areas from 2006 to 2010, local newspaper Vietnam News reported Thursday.

The Vietnam National Textile and Garment Group (Vinatex) will pour the investment of 16 trillion Vietnamese dong (VND) into 24 key projects, mainly on developing feedstock, distribution system, fashion design and infrastructure.

The fund will be used to build a 1,000-hectare cotton farm in Vietnam's southern central region, new factories in industrial parks across the country, a textile and garment supermarket, and two raw material trading centers in Hanoi capital and Ho Chi Minh City.

Vinatex expects to produce over 400 million square meters of fabric, including 270 million square meters for exports, by 2010.

Vietnam is likely to reap 5.5 billion dollars from exporting garments and textiles, mainly to the European Union and the United States, in 2006, up nearly 14.6 percent from 2005, said the Trade Ministry.

Vietnam made garment and textile export revenues of more than 1. 7 billion dollars in the first four months of this year, up 38.7 percent from the same period last year, according to the country's General Statistics Office.

Source: Xinhua