Kodak's largest photographic film and paper plant in Asia is expected to be completed next year in Xiamen City of east China's Fujian Province.

According to November 21's China Daily Business Weekly, the first- phase of the 430,000-sq-m project in southern China was completed earlier this month, only 17 months after its ground-breaking, and has already begun producing a variety of Kodak consumer and professional films and papers.

Kodak executive described the completion of the plant's first phase a milestone in the company's 1.2 billion US dollars investment project in China, which was announced in April l998.

The company has set an aggressive goal of achieving ISO14001 certification, a set of internationally accredited standards designed to protect the environment, in all its major manufacturing sites in China by 2001.

In other developments, Kodak's camera factory in Shanghai has become the first Kodak operation in the world to receive the Six- Sigma quality certification for the production of cameras. (Xinhua)