Vietnam needs to invest three billion U.S. dollars in its garment and textile industry from now to 2010, local newspaper People's Army reported Tuesday.

Of the money, over 2.27 billion dollars will be spent on weaving and dyeing projects, 443 million dollars on garment ones, about 200 million dollars on manpower training, and some 180 million dollars on developing textile and garment materials, the paper quoted sources from the country's Industry Ministry as saying.

After Vietnam joins the World Trade Organization (WTO), hopefully late this year, it will export more garments and textiles, especially to the United States, and attract more foreign investors in the domestic apparel industry, deputy industry minister Bui Xuan Khu said recently.

As a WTO member, Vietnam will lure more foreign investors into Vietnam in making garments and textiles and then exporting them to their countries, and companies in a third country into placing orders for apparel items produced in Vietnam, he said.

The country is estimated to reap 5.5 billion dollars from exporting garments and textiles, mainly to the European Union and the United States, in 2006, up 14.6 percent against 2005.

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 year-on-year, according to the country's General Statistics Office.

Source: Xinhua