The northern mountainous province of Lao Cai on March 9 granted a license to a Taiwanese-invested project on growing for 50 years.

The US$2.2 million project, funded by the Li Shan Tian Company Ltd from Taiwan, is the province's largest foreign invested project in agriculture. The investor plans to grow high-quality O Long tea on 50 hectares, each of which is expected to yield 12 tonnes of fresh tea buds with the same quality compared with Taiwanese products. Some 80 percent of the production output will be processed for export.

The company will also build a tea processing company with an annual capacity of 300 tonnes and employ some 500 local workers.

To this end, the Lao Cai province has granted the investor free land use for 15 years, income tax exemption for the first four years and income tax breaks for the next eight years.

The northern mountainous province of Lao Cai has so far attracted 32 foreign - invested projects worth almost US$40 million, including four farming deals with total investment capital of US$3.7 million.