“This is the first ethanol factory in Cambodia and it will become the market place of cassava product for local farmers,” Prime Minister Hun Sen said at the opening ceremony of the pioneer venture invested by the MH Bio-energy Group of South Korea.

The plant has a designed capacity of 36,000 tons (about 12 million gallons US, 45.4 million liters) of ethanol for export per year, focused on the European market. The plant, which currently needs about 100,000 tons of dry cassava flour each year, plans to double its export volume over the next few years.

Cassava is a key economic crop in rural Cambodia. According to the government, around 30,000 hectares of land were planted with cassava in 2005 in the kingdom, with a turnout of around 536,000 tons of flour.