KAMPONG SPEU — A Chinese agribusiness firm has begun construction of a cassava processing facility in Kampong Speu province, in a $20 million investment that underscores Cambodia’s accelerating shift from raw agricultural exports toward domestic value-added manufacturing.
Guanshen Shengda Agriculture Industry Co., Ltd. held a groundbreaking ceremony on Monday for the plant, which is projected to generate annual revenues of approximately $90 million upon full operation. The facility will have capacity to produce 100,000 tonnes of refined cassava starch and an equivalent volume of dried cassava chips annually, alongside 30,000 tonnes of feed-grade residue.
Son Senghout, Secretary of State at the Ministry of Industry, Science, Technology and Innovation (MISTI), said Cambodia’s cassava industry was undergoing a structural transformation. “The cassava sector is shifting from raw commodity exports toward domestic processing, enabling Cambodia to capture higher value within the country,” he said at the ceremony.
Cambodia produced approximately 13.89 million tonnes of cassava in 2023, according to figures cited by the ministry. The country now operates 16 cassava processing factories, more than double the seven recorded in 2020, reflecting the pace of industrial investment in the sector.
The new facility is the latest in a wave of agro-industrial projects that the government has sought to attract as part of its broader economic diversification strategy. Cambodia has established four national standards governing cassava products — covering tapioca flour, tapioca starch, sweet cassava, and hydrocyanic acid (HCN) control — to align domestic output with international market requirements.
The investment comes as Cambodia prepares for its graduation from the United Nations’ Least Developed Country (LDC) category in December 2029, a transition that is prompting both policymakers and investors to accelerate efforts to move the economy up the value chain.