HO CHI MINH CITY, Jan. 19 (Xinhua) -- State-owned Vietnam Rubber Group (VRG), Vietnam's biggest rubber producer and exporter, is scheduled to launch its initial public offering on Feb. 2, and list its shares on the Ho Chi Minh Stock Exchange in June or July.

VRG will auction 475 million shares, or roughly 11.9 percent of its chartered capital of 40 trillion Vietnamese dong (nearly 1.8 billion U.S. dollars), at a starting price of 13,000 Vietnamese dong (nearly 60 U.S. cents), the group said on Friday.

VRG will also sell roughly 11.9 percent of the chartered capital to strategic investors, while the state will retain 3 billion shares or 75 percent of the capital after the group's equitization.

VRG, whose core business is natural rubber, made revenues of 19 trillion Vietnamese dong (840.7 million U.S. dollars), and net profits of 3.6 trillion Vietnamese dong (nearly 159.3 million U.S. dollars) in 2017.

VRG, one of biggest economic groups in Vietnam, currently manages 501,300 hectares of agricultural land and 18,600 hectares of non-agricultural land in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.

Vietnam exported nearly 1.4 million tons of rubber worth roughly 2.3 billion U.S. dollars in 2017, posting respective year-on-year increases of 11.4 percent and 36 percent, according to the country's Ministry of Industry and Trade.