By Binh Nguyen - The Saigon Times Daily

HCMC – Saigon Paper Corporation looks set to operate modern production lines for tissue and carton products from the third quarter of this year at its factory in My Xuan A Industrial Park in Tan Thanh District, Ba Ria-Vung Tau Province.

Installed with equipment and technology imported from Europe and the United States, the My Xuan II factory has annual output of 35,000 tons of tissue, 140,000 tons of cartons and other products. The current My Xuan I paper factory and the second facility will enable Saigon Paper to triple its production capacity.

Cao Tien Vi, chairman of Saigon Paper, told reporters in HCMC on Tuesday evening that the My Xuan II factory got off the ground in 2007 and had total investment capital of VND2 trillion (some US$95.6 million), including VND400 billion for the waste water treatment system.

Saigon Paper sells most of its current products through 150 distributors and more than 50,000 points of retail sale across the local market, and also exports tissue products to markets in Asia, America and Africa. Nguyen Quoc Thuc of Saigon Paper said Japan was the company’s latest export market.

Thuc said Saigon Paper had gained a contract worth US$120,000 to export tissue to Japan and the first batch went to this choosy market early this week. The company will send tens of containers every month afterwards.

Saigon Paper has set targets in its development strategy until 2015 to post revenue VND4 trillion (over US$191 million) by that year and hold market shares of 40% for the tissue market and 15% for the industrial paper segment in Vietnam.