1st Cambodian Bike Factory Up and Running Next Month

COLOGNE, Germany – A & J Ent. Co. Ltd from Taiwan announced during the IFMA Show in Cologne that it will start bicycle production in Cambodia next month for completely duty free (no anti-dumping and no import duty) export to the EU countries. Currently the new facility is under construction (see photo) and is being built in the Svay Rieng Province which is only some kilometres from the border with Vietnam. The first week of October production will start at the new Cambodian A & J subsidiary that is named Atlantic Cycle. Production capacity for the new plant is set at 1 million units; during the first year target is to produce some 600,000 bicycles. A & J already operated a bike facility in Vietnam under the name High Ride. This unit is being scaled down but will continue to assemble bikes for markets other than the EU or Canada. The High Ride plant will, in a joint venture with Lung I, start production of steel frames in October which for the bigger part will be used in the production at Atlantic Cycle. The new Cambodian facility will start production of its own alloy frames in May 2006 for which it will also have a design team and testing facilities. Atlantic Cycle that is located in a special 240-hectare processing zone along the Cambodian-Vietnamese border, will ship its bikes under Form A Cambodian custom documents and the port of loading will be Ho Chi Min City. The new A & J subsidiary is expected to create about 500 local jobs and have 48 foreign staff from Taiwan, China and Vietnam. (JO)