The US$9.8 million plant, the first project by an Indian firm in Hai Phong and the biggest investment by a firm from the sub-continent in northern Vietnam, will export 80 percent of its products, mostly to the US market.

Alliance Minerals, which aims to earn US$100 million in revenue over the next three years, will pump an additional US$30 million into the Hai Phong plant by 2011.

Beside the Hai Phong plant, Alliance Minerals is also investing US$15 million in a limestone processing plant in the northern province of Tuyen Quang.

According to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, India became the sixth largest foreign investor in Vietnam last year, with a registered capital of US$533 million.

Bilateral trade is expected to reach US$2 billion by the end of 2008, up from US$1.54 billion last year.