Vietnam will pour 95.5 trillion Vietnamese dong (VND) (nearly 6 billion U.S. dollars) into developing its paper and pulp industry from now to 2020 as part of an Industry Ministry plan, local newspaper Vietnam News reported Wednesday.

Of the amount, 87 trillion VND (over 5.4 billion dollars) will be used to build more paper and pulp plants, 7.9 trillion VND ( nearly 494 million dollars) to plant forests, and the remainder to do other relevant works.

With the planned investment, Vietnam will turn out 600,000 tons of pulp, key material for paper production, in 2010 and 1.8 million tons in 2020, meeting 70 percent of the domestic demand for the material in 2020.

The country currently has some 300 paper makers, and a few pulp producers whose production meets only 37 percent of the domestic demand for pulp, the Vietnam Pulp and Paper Association said, noting that it has to import 130,000-150,000 tons of the material each year.

This year, Vietnam is predicted to manufacture 1.13 million tons of paper of different kinds, including letter, printing and packaging paper, and import of 914,500 tons of paper, mainly complicated kinds of the product, according to the Vietnamese Trade Ministry.