Chinese firm builds 138-mln-USD car tire plant in NE Cambodia

PHNOM PENH, May 10 (Xinhua) -- Newbustar (Cambodia) Tire Co., Ltd., a subsidiary of China's Qingdao Doublestar Group, has begun to build a 138-million-U.S.-dollar car tire factory in northeast Cambodia's Kratie province, the Kratie provincial administration said in a news release on Wednesday.

Kratie provincial governor Va Thorn on Tuesday attended a ground-breaking ceremony for the plant on a 40-hectare parcel in the UBN Special Economic Zone in Snuol district, the news release said.

"This mega-project will further promote trade relations between Cambodia and China," he said. "It will contribute further to Cambodia's industrial and economic development and create more jobs for locals."

Doublestar Group President Chai Yongsen said he was confident that the project would contribute to promoting China-Cambodia relations within the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative.

Once fully operational, the factory will be capable of manufacturing 8.5 million high-performance radial tires a year, he said, adding that the first-phase project will be completed in October this year.

In March, a 300-million-dollar General Tire Technology (Cambodia) plant, a subsidiary of Chinese tire maker Jiangsu General Science Technology, launched its operation in the Sihanoukville Special Economic Zone in the southwest coastal city of Sihanoukville.