Electricity of Vietnam (EVN), the country's biggest power producer and sole distributor, plans to issue bonds worth 300-500 million U.S. dollars on foreign stock markets next year, according to local newspaper Vietnam News on Tuesday.

EVN is in the process of making detailed plans, which will require government approval and include procedures for a foreign consultant to audit the state-owned corporation. The expected issuance is part of a policy of the country's Finance Ministry on facilitating state-owned enterprises to actively search for new investment capital.

EVN is also planning to sell around 8 trillion Vietnamese dong (500 million dollars) worth of bonds on the domestic market in the second and the third quarter of this year.

Vietnam's electricity demand is estimated to annually grow 10- 15 percent in the 2007-2010 period, so the country needs 20 billion dollars from now to 2010 to implement electricity production, transmission and distribution projects, according to EVN vice general director Dinh Quang Tri.

To mobilize funds for power development, EVN will equitize some hydroelectric plants, issue bonds, establish joint ventures, and lists some equitized power plants in the Vietnamese stock market, he said, noting that it will equitize three plants in the second quarter.