VIETNAM
Deforestation, reforestation and industrial plantations
by Chris Lang

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There are three large state owned pulp and paper mills in the Vietnam, Bai Bang (55,000 tons per year) in Vinh Phu province in the north of Vietnam, Dong Nai (20,000 tons per year) and Tan Mai (48,000 tons per year) both in Dong Nai province in the south. In addition there are almost 100 small scale pulp and paper mills around the country (Pesonen 1995: 17). These are based on Chinese technology in the north and on German, British, French and Taiwanese technology in the south (Flashtec 1995). Today, Vietnam's pulp and paper mills produce a total of about 360,000 tons of paper and board a year (PPI 1999).

The supply of raw materials is becoming an increasing headache for the Vietnamese pulp and paper industry, a situation which is made worse by the export of wood chips to Japan and Taiwan. Mills have been forced to close for several months in recent years due to shortage of materials.

Many Vietnamese pulp and paper mills operate at well under capacity resulting in many mills running at a loss. Production costs in 1994 of a ton of Vietnamese paper were US$200 higher than European or US costs, and cheap paper has been dumped on the Vietnamese market from Eastern Europe and Russia (VN 1994a: 1).

The following section looks at some of the pulp and paper and wood chip mills in the country. Bai Bang is considered in some detail, partly because more information is available on this project, but also because of its importance in the Vietnamese context.

When SIDA launched the Bai Bang pulp and paper mill project in 1974, World Wood, a timber trade magazine, reported the estimated cost as US$170 million (World Wood 1974: 3). Bai Bang turned out to be Sweden's longest running and most expensive aid project ever. In total, Sida contributed about US$1 billion to the 55,000 tons a year pulp and paper mill – making it possibly the most expensive pulp and paper mill in the world per ton of paper produced. The mill sources its raw materials from a total area of 1.2 million hectares. Large areas of natural forests have been cleared to supply the mill, sometimes to be replaced with plantations. Despite the massive input of Swedish money and expertise, the mill only reached its designed output in 1995, fifteen years after first paper machine started operation.

The mill still relies on pulp imports to run at capacity. In 1996, imported pulp accounted for one third of the mill's expenditure (Blower et al 1999: 54). Meanwhile, import tarrifs on paper ensure that sales from the mill do not face competition from cheap imports. The price of paper produced at Bai Bang is up 10 to 20 per cent above the international price of paper (Blower et al 1999: 120).

The project was the subject of huge debates in Sweden, especially during the 1970s and 1980s. However, in 1999, Sida published an evaluation of the project that concluded that "Bai Bang has proved to be an example of a sustainable development cooperation project" (Blower et al 1999: 165) and even that the "associated forestry operation are ecologically sustainable" (Blower et al 1999: 170). Nevertheless, there are still serious problems associated with supplying raw material to the mill, which are only likely to be made worse by the currently proposed expansion of the mill. Meanwhile, Bai Bang's promoters have never commissioned detailed studies of the impacts of fast-growing tree plantations on people and forests in the area of the mill.

Sweden's support for Bai Bang mill originated in its opposition to the US war in Vietnam. During the late 1960s, the Swedish Prime Minister, Olof Palme, together with a large section of the Swedish public, was opposed to US involvement in Vietnam and saw Swedish aid to Vietnam as a way of expressing this opposition. As Rolf Ekeus, then an official in Palme's Social Democratic Party, said later, "A Western power was bombing the poor country to smithereens, the least we could do was to help them rebuild" (Jerve et al 1999: 26). The former secretary-general of the Vietnamese Communist Party, Do Muoi, indicated how important the aid was to Vietnam when he told researchers in 1998, that Sweden was a source of support during "the years of black tears" (Jerve et al 1999: 29).

Initially, Sweden wanted a three year aid programme, but Vietnam insisted on project aid. Once Sweden agreed, Vietnam presented a shopping list of potential projects. Projects included:

Techniques for reforestation in hilly terrain;
A pulp mill;
A furniture factory;
Fishing vessels and cargo ships;
Harbour development;
Steel mills;
Aid to promotion of exports; and
A 350 MW hydroelectric power plant (Jerve et al 1999: 40).

Eventually the two sides agreed on a pulp and paper mill. A paper mill was not at the top of Vietnam's development plans, but Vietnam wanted to exploit its forests and Sweden had the technology to build a state-of-the-art pulp and paper mill (Jerve et al 1999: 48). An agreement to build the pulp and paper mill was signed in August 1974 (Jerve et al 1999: 54).

The consulting firm, Jaakko Poyry, played a significant role in the history of the mill. Poyry's initial involvement, acting as SIDA's consultants, was a study produced in July 1971 (Jerve et al 1999: 58). Poyry's report assessed various options for the forest industry and concluded that a paper mill would be a better option than a plywood factory (Jerve et al 1999: 60). Initially Vietnam wanted to build a mill with an annual capacity of 100,000 tons but Poyry's report concluded that this was too large given the administrative and technical constraints (Jerve et al 1999: 50).

In October 1972, SIDA commissioned Poyry to carry out a pre-feasibility study of a 50,000 tons a year pulp and paper mill. The report stated that the forest area that the Vietnamese government had assigned to the mill was too small (Jerve et al 1999: 62).

Jaakko Poyry won a further contract to produce a feasibility study in April 1973. According to Jouko Virta, chairman of Jaakko Poyry consulting, Poyry's feasibility study recommended 14 conditions which had to be met before the construction of the mill commenced (Virta 1996). Magnus Spangenberg, Poyry's consultant responsible for writing the feasibility study, repeatedly stressed the need for further assessment of the project before it went ahead. Poyry's feasibility study, completed in April 1974, concluded that "the feasibility of the project as such will be unsatisfactory [sic]" (Jerve et al 1999: 67).

However, SIDA was determined to go ahead quickly, and in 1973 had hired another consulting company, WP-System AB, to coordinate the planning process. WP-System agreed, on condition "that we can safely see the continuation of our undertaking all through the whole construction period of the project" (Jerve et al 1999: 92). In October 1974, SIDA hired WP-System as project manager for the Bai Bang project (Jerve et al 1999: 90). Another Swedish company, Silviconsult won the contract to coordinate the associated forestry programme (World Wood 1977b: 35).

WP-System won the contract to build Bai Bang in a deal with SIDA – without the contract going out to tender (Jerve et al 1999: 126). WP-System was formed in 1968 (Jerve et al 1999: 112) and had never planned and built a pulp and paper mill anywhere in the world. The company had to hire a forest industry specialist as Project Director in Stockholm (Jerve et al 1999: 98).

Under its contract with SIDA, WP-System had no responsibility to keep within a fixed budget and there was also no penalty mechanism for delays in completing the contract (Jerve et al 1999: 90). The cost of the mill increased, and in January 1977 SIDA calculated that the total cost would be US$263.75 million – almost US$100 million more than their estimate three years early (World Wood 1977a: 3) (World Wood 1974: 3).

Nguyen Trong Khanh, who would become General Director of the mill, summed up the problems of cost overruns and delays in an interview with researchers in 1998: "There was no strict control, and SIDA too easily accepted requests from WP-System to prolong or to get new funds" (Jerve et al 1999: 91).

A small army of international consultants arrived in Vietnam and lived in the "Swedish Camp", near the mill, in housing built by Swedish carpenters (Jerve et al 1999: 96). At one point there were more than 600 foreigners, including family members, in the project area (Jerve et al 1999: 198). Consultants were provided with housing for their families, tennis courts, a swimming pool, schools for their children and a hospital (Usher 1993). The Swedes nicknamed the Camp "Valhalla", after the home of the gods in Norse mythology (Jerve et al 1999: 100).

Mat Silaste, who visited the project in 1980, reported, "The visitor gets the impression of the boy's summer camp rather than serious mill construction. Most of the expatriate personnel are wearing all kind of funny shorts and driving with motorcycles around with an arrogant air. It looks very childish and forms a complete contrast with the local people and disrespect to the local culture and customs. Do we act this way at home also?" (Jerve et al 1999: 114)

About 40 per cent of the funds allocated by Sweden throughout the project, went on Swedish workers at the project site and consultancy headquarters in Sweden (Jerve et al 1999: 269).

However, consulting firms were not the only ones to benefit from Sweden's aid. Five Swedish companies won contracts to work on the design. By the end of 1975, 160 engineers and technicians in Sweden had worked on the design and engineering work for the project (Jerve et al 1999: 98) Two of the sub-contractors that WP-System hired to do design work, Celpap and Ola Hellgren Ingenjorsbyran, were created in order to work on the Bai Bang job (Jerve et al 1999: 101).

Approximately 80 per cent of the goods and services procured for Bai Bang were bought in Sweden (Jerve et al 1999: 264). The largest machinery orders were for two paper machines at around US$10 million to AB Karlstad Mekaniska Werkstad. Other Swedish companies involved were Beckers, Saab-Scania, Kockums, Volvo, Atlas-Copco, NJA, Asea and Platzer Bygg AB (World Wood 1976: 3). Swedish trucks were shipped out to Vietnam to carry materials from the port of Haiphong to the construction site, 100 kilometres inland (Jerve et al 1999: 96). Not only Swedish companies benefitted: a French company supplied the boiler for the power plant; Japanese, West German and Italian companies supplied components for the pulp mill and chemical plant; and Finnish, Swiss, Italian and West German companies supplied components to the paper mill and processing unit (Jerve et al 1999: 103).

However, within a few years, the problems of using a consultant with no experience of building a pulp and paper mill became impossible to ignore. In 1979, SIDA's Industry Division produced a report which criticised WP-System's lack of expertise in the forestry industry. The Industry Division organised a series of meetings with representatives of various forestry companies including Jaakko Poyry, with a view to setting up a consortium to work on Bai Bang (Jerve et al 1999: 123). Per Gundersby, of Jaakko Poyry, had recently returned from working on a pulp and paper project in Brazil. Gundersby visited Vietnam in June 1979 and set about forming a consortium to take over from WP-System. The consortium included Celpap and Angpanneforeningen (two of WP-System's sub-contractors – and two of Jaakko Poyry's main competitors in Sweden) and Sodra Skogsagarna (Jerve et al 1999: 123). Scanmanagement, as the consortium was named, was 60 per cent owned by Jaakko Poyry (Virta 1996).

SIDA announced a tender in July 1979, with less than a month to the deadline (Jerve et al 1999: 124). Scanmanagement won the tender. According to Jouko Virta, of Jaakko Poyry consulting, a condition of Poyry's involvement was that the contract for the forestry element of the Bai Bang project should go to the Jaakko Poyry Group (Virta 1996). Interforest AB, a Swedish subsidiary of Jaakko Poyry, subsequently won the forestry contract.

The first paper machine was completed in December 1980, the second in March 1982 and the pulp mill in September 1982 (Hamilton 1982: 12) (Jerve et al 1999: 106). The first few years after completion were a fiasco. Vietnam did not have enough qualified technicians to run the mill, and spare parts and chemicals had to be imported, which the Vietnamese government could not afford (Sayer 1991: 239). Vietnam was supposed to meet the demand for foreign currency by exporting paper, and SIDA was actively involved in promoting this export trade to Korea, Taiwan and Japan (Virta 1996).

Despite the problems, the project continued to be a good deal for the consultants. SIDA depended on Scanmanagement to assess the need for international experts. Scanmanagement "naturally wanted to maximise his own role and income" according to Sida's 1999 Bai Bang Evaluation Report (Jerve et al 1999: 270). To address the issues of bias in consultant's reports, SIDA hired yet more consultants to work on advisory groups and review missions. However, as Sida's evaluation notes, the members of these groups and missions had the same background and education as Scanmanagement and SIDA staff – almost all were Swedes from the forestry or paper industry (Jerve et al 1999: 270).

In 1984, Sigvard Bahrke was appointed as Bai Bang project director at Scanmanagement. Bahrke was the former General Director of a large parastatal forestry company (ASSI) and a member of SIDA's board (Jerve et al 1999: 226). In the mid-1980s, when SIDA was looking to phase out its involvement in the mill, Bahrke played an important role in persuading SIDA's board to continue funding the project and to maintain Scanmanagement's involvement (Jerve et al 1999: 230). In 1986, SIDA's Review Mission even included a former member of Scanmanagement (Jerve et al 1999: 252).

Sweden was represented at the official opening of the mill in 1982 by Roine Carlsson, Minister without Portfolio. After the ceremony, a journalist asked him whether it mattered that forced labour was used on a Swedish aid project. Carlsson replied, "it is an internal matter for the Vietnamese how the labour force to Bai Bang is recruited" (Jerve et al 1999: 182). The remark was published in Swedish newspapers and triggered off a long debate in Sweden about labour conditions on the Bai Bang project.

A study carried out in 1985 investigated the working conditions in the forestry brigades cutting forests to supply the mill. The report is shocking, and documents forced labour, poorly paid workers uprooted form their families and villages, ill health, poor housing, poor education, and "deplorable" child care facilities (Larsson and Birgegard: 1985). One of the ironies of the project is that forestry workers interviewed in the study had received no paper from the project (Larsson and Birgegard 1985: 23).

Although the report was submitted to SIDA in January 1985, SIDA did not publish it until 1987 (Jerve et al 1999: 234). In December 1986, one of the writers of the report, Katarina Larsson wrote two articles in the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter, entitled "The betrayal of the forestry workers" and "Manipulation as a working method". She pointed out that SIDA had attempted to stop the report she wrote with Birgegard and showed how their criticism had been suppressed (Jerve et al 1999: 189).

In 1987, Professor Rita Lilgestrom, headed a team of researchers which carried out a socio-economic study on Bai Bang. The report concluded that the workforce employed was not "forced labour" as it is usually understood, but that the conditions for the forest workers were "gruelling" (Jerve et al 1999: 168).

Another study from 1987 conducted by Adam Fforde argued that migration to the forest areas was part of a centuries old tradition of emigration to avoid overcrowding in the Red River delta, and that although conditions for forest workers may have been bad, they were not actually forced to work in forestry brigades (Blower et al 1999: 103).

Sida's 1999 Bai Bang Evaluation Report states that the debate in Sweden about forced labour did lead to some improvements in the living standards for forestry workers, by stimulating the provision of loans, improved housing, health and education. However, the evaluation states that the reforms associated with allocation of land to farmers and the higher incomes this has generated had a much more important impact on improving living standards (Blower et al 1999: 103).

One of Jaakko Poyry's recommendations in their 1974 feasibility study, was that a full resource inventory should be completed before construction of the mill was commenced (Virta 1996). However, one of the more obvious problems during the early stages of the project was that Vietnam was at war. What seemed to the Swedish side like reasonable requests for technical information necessary to build the mill and make sure it would function in the future, were issues of national security to the Vietnamese side (Jerve et al 1999: 33-34).

In 1972, Nguyen Van Kha, Vice Chairman of the State Planning Commission instructed the Directorate of Forests to set aside 100,000 hectares for tree plantations to supply Bai Bang (Jerve et al 1999: 49). These plantations, however, were not established and it was not until 1984/5 that Jaakko Poyry carried out the first inventory of forests and plantations to supply the mill. A second inventory in 1986/7 confirmed the seriousness of the raw material shortage (Cossalter 1988: 7).

Several factors contributed to the problems of raw material supply to the mill. Some could not be foreseen, such as the loss through flowering of large areas of bamboo stands. Bamboo is a grass and flowers at long intervals after which the stems rot and cannot be used as raw material fibre. When the bamboo flowered, however, instead of allowing bamboo to regenerate, the local authorities decided to burn the areas and establish plantations. However, many of these plantations failed (Jerve et al 1999: 151).

Other problems included wastage of up to 45 per cent of standing volume, due to poor harvesting techniques and transport losses, and wood was also required for non-industrial (fuelwood, construction wood) and industrial (two other pulp and paper mills) uses in the region. In addition a large quantity of timber from the region was sold in the area around Hanoi (Cossalter 1988: 4). Local demand for non-industrial wood meant that of 10 logs harvested perhaps only one or two would eventually arrive at the mill (Ohlsson and Byron no date: 12).

The Bac Yen Union of Forestry and Industry was created in 1979 to supply the Bai Bang pulp and paper mill, originally from an area of 200,000 hectares of forest land in Ha Tuyen province (Larsson and Birgegard 1985: 6). In 1983, the raw material area, which supplies the mill was expanded considerably, to include a gross area of 1.2 million hectares in Ha Tuyen, Hoang Lien Son and Vinh Phu provinces.

In June 1986, SIDA started a new forestry project, the Plantation and Soil Conservation Project. Interforest AB, a subsidiary of Jaakko Poyry, won the contract to oversee the project, which aimed to:

• supply the mill with raw material;
• increase production of fuelwood for local needs;
• contribute to the ecological balance;
• engage the local population in tree growing (Cossalter 1988: Annex 1); and
• "to reduce the pressure being put on the newly established industrial plantations by local people" (Shanks 1994: 83).

The project aimed to produce monoculture plantations of eucalyptus and acacia (Shanks 1994: 83) to supply the Mill with raw materials. The project aimed to establish 6,500 hectares per annum of fast growing species (Stahl 1990: 13).

Eucalyptus camaldulensis was selected, not on the basis of extensive trials, but because the demand for the raw material was urgent. As one consultant explained:

"It is often necessary to start large scale plantations without having complete and reliable local information about what to plant. Industries cannot be left standing with little or no wood while the foresters wait for perfect information . . . In this the Vinh Phu plantations are no exception" (Stahl 1990: 8).

In practice trial plantations had been established, but tree cutting and collection of leaf litter for fuel was a major problem in many plantations soon after they were established (Shanks 1994: 83) (Cossalter 1998: 1). The choice of Eucalyptus camaldulensis as a lead species relied heavily on a species trial established in 1979, but cutting by the local villagers, grazing of buffaloes, termite attacks and weed competition meant that the plots were seriously damaged or had disappeared entirely within five years. In addition measurements were irregular and data was lost. According to a consultant, "In 1984 the only data available on this trial were the measurements at age 1 and 2 in all four sites and the measurements at age 5 in Thanh Ba which was the site with the poorest potential" (Stahl 1990: 24).

A similar fate befell a trial established in 1985, involving three provenances of Eucalyptus camaldulensis, and seven other species. Cutting and damage caused by buffaloes meant that the trial could not be statistically evaluated (Stahl 1990: 26).

These problems, illustrate an important aspect of plantation development in Vietnam. Land which foresters and government officials often assume to be "empty" or "barren" is often not at all empty, but is used for a variety of purposes important to the communities living there. Although there may be little or no tree cover, the "bare hills" are of great value for fodder and fuel and for temporary crop production (Shanks 1994: 82). Conflicts are therefore common, when such land is earmarked for industrial plantations. Plantations are destroyed through grazing or are simply cut down by villagers (Ohlsson and Byron no date: 12).

In 1995, for example, a trial plantation of clonal Eucalyptus camaldulensis in Gia Thanh commune, Vinh Phu province was damaged in its fourth year through cutting by villagers (Nguyen Sy Huong 1995: 12).

Further problems included the fact that attempts to set up village plantations were often unsuccessful at least partly because villagers were given poor quality seedlings which had been rejected for industrial plantations. Much of the land available to villagers for planting was infertile, compacted and highly eroded (Midgley 1989: 36).

The difficulties associated with the establishment of large scale industrial plantations eventually led to a change of direction in SIDA's aid. Swedish contributions to the Bai Bang pulp and paper mill finished on 1 July 1990 (SIDA 1989: 38) and in June 1991, the Plantation and Soil Conservation Project was terminated, to be replaced by the Swedish-Vietnamese Forestry Cooperation Programme (Stahl 1990: 18). Interforest won a new contract with SIDA.

The Forestry Cooperation Programme covered five provinces (the existing raw material area, plus Ha Giang and Lao Cai) and aimed to help enable farming families and organisations to plant trees on land recently allocated under the 1988 Land Law (Shanks 1994: 85). (See section on Land Law, above.) Instead of the target driven social forestry afforestation projects under the Plantation and Soil Conservation Project which involved seedling distribution and centrally controlled nurseries, the new project focussed on farm-level forestry. Projects were started in a few pilot communes and villages in each province. Community nurseries were established to supply a wide range of species to farmers (Shanks 1994: 89). Meanwhile the mass seedling delivery system was maintained, outside the farm-level forestry project pilot villages. In some cases, both systems existed side by side (Shanks 1994: 91-92).

These SIDA-funded projects did not prevent large scale logging in natural forest both in the "raw material area" and in neighbouring provinces to meet the demand for raw materials to feed the mill. In 1993, Le Thac Can, of the National Environmental Research Programme in Vietnam, carried out an independent study which reported that in the 10 years since the mill was completed, more than 80,000 hectares of mostly natural forest had been cleared to supply the mill (Le Thac Can et. al. 1993). Since 1990, farmers and companies were allowed to sell bamboo and wood to the mill. According to Le Thac Can, this led to rapid depletion of bamboo and trees from village woodlots and still further deforestation (Le Thac Can et. al. 1993).

Nguyen Xuan Xuyen of the Union of Vinh Phu Paper Pulp Companies argues that private companies supplying Bai Bang had "seriously damaged forests since they operate as brokers between sellers and producers and unfairly exploit local people by classifying their products at lower standards, and therefore at lower prices than their actual value. They evade taxes and even supply fake goods" (Nguyen Xuan Xuyen 1996: 85). In 1996, the Vinh Phu Paper Raw Material Company became the sole provider of logs to Bai Bang, sourcing wood from forest enterprises and private growers – including forest enterprise workers planting on forest enterprise land and private farmers (Blower et al 1999: 39).

In the mid-1990s, pulp had to be imported to keep the mill going. In 1995 around 30 per cent of the raw material supplied to the Mill was in the form of imported pulp, leading to an increase in paper production costs (VN 1995: 2).

A 1994 report states that:

"Bai Bang Paper mill has been in operation for 14 years and has been operating at a fraction of its capacity. The Mill was running at a loss. This is all the more remarkable given the fact that during more than 10 years they have received government subsidies and SIDA aid, 45,000 hectares of plantations assisted by SIDA have been established (costing US$680 per hectare) and the paper industry presently benefits from a total ban on paper imports, up from 40 per cent import tax in previous years" (Frankefort 1994: 23).

In 1996, Nguyen Ngoc Lung of the Department for Forestry Development, pointed out that even with the massive investment in plantation development at Bai Bang, the mill still relied on "a large volume of bamboo which is collected from nearby natural forest areas" (Nguyen Ngoc Lung 1996: 5).

Sida's 1999 evaluation of Bai Bang states that, "doubts still remain about the commercial viability of plantations. At current log prices and growth rates, non-subsidised interest rates are too high to make plantation investments viable. Enterprises need tax exemptions for the first and second rotations to ensure viability" (Blower et al 1999: 49).

The impact of establishing fast-growing tree plantations on communities living in the area is one aspect of the Bai Bang project that has never been studied in any detail. In February 1973, SIDA officials noted in a draft internal memorandum that 85,000 "forest-dwelling slash-and-burn cultivators" would be prevented from using the forest because of the commercial forestry operations. However, the Vietnamese government insisted this was an internal affair and did not permit SIDA to investigate further (Jerve et al 1999: 56). SIDA accepted this position and re-wrote the draft memorandum to replace the figure of 85,000 people, with "an unknown number of persons" who would be affected (Jerve et al 1999: 70).

Part of Sida's 1999 Bai Bang Evaluation Report included research carried out in 1997 by Mandy Thomas, an anthropologist at the University of Western Sydney, on the social impact of the project. Thomas concluded that the mill has had a "very positive impact on the immediate locality", by providing secure employment and economic, educational and social benefits for its workers. The total number of jobs created by the mill is around 25,000, including forest workers, material supply companies and other businesses. She points out however, that "The mill cannot be said to have had more than a marginal influence on living standards more broadly, even at the district level". Thomas states that the government's land allocation programme and the "benefits of forestry development projects are responsible for the significant improvements in living conditions" (Thomas 1997).

In April 2000, the mill employed 3,500 people and the town of Bai Bang has grown to a population of 23,000. The mill includes a 28 MW coal-fired power station, which sells surplus electricity to the state (Lang 2000). In 2001, the mill produced 72,840 tons of paper, more than 30 per cent above its designed capacity (VN Panorama www 1). Protected from cheap imports of paper the mill runs at a profit, even though its paper costs more to produce than paper on the international market.

In December 2001, work on expanding Bai Bang was reported to be about to start (paperloop.com 7 December 2001). The plant is to be expanded from a capacity of 55,000 tons of paper a year to 100,000 tons. At the same time, annual pulp capacity will be increased from 48,000 tons to 61,000 tons. This represents the first stage of a plan to increase the mill's annual paper capacity to 200,000 tons and pulp capacity to 150,000 tons (Vietnam Panorama www 1). The cost of the works is estimated at US$50 million (Tran Doan An 2001).

Funding for the expansion of the mill from Scandinavia. In 2000, Vinapimex obtained US$42 million in loans from three Nordic banks to fund the rebuilding of the mill (pponline.com 29 September 2000).

Rolf Samuelsson, Sweden's First Secretary, Development Cooperation in Hanoi, said in April 2000, that Sida was involved in discussions about the expansion of Bai Bang. He said, "it is a commercial venture, commercial interests from Sweden, but there are certain credits provided I understand, not for only Swedish companies, there are others who have shown an interest" (Samuelsson 2000).

On 21 November 2001, the Nordic Development Fund agreed a US$6.3 million loan towards the expansion of the mill (NDF www 1).

On 30 November 2001, the Swedish Government agreed to provide a preferential credit of US$12.5 million to fund the first phase of the expansion (Vietnam Panorama www 1).

Vinapimex has signed contracts with Voith Paper and China's Sinochem to rebuild the plant. Elof Hansson and Marubeni won contracts to supply equipment. Hansson leads a group of supplier companies which includes Metso Paper, Kvaerner Chemetics, Kvaerner Pulping, Purac, and AF-IPK (paperloop.com 2 December 2001). (See section on Elof Hansson, below.)

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