A SIA Pacific Breweries (APB), the Singaporean producer of Tiger Beer, is to invest $50 million building a brewery on a greenfield site in Takhmao, Kandal province.

A contract for the plant - named The Cambodia Brewery Limited - will be signed with the Cambodian Investment Board on Oct 26, said Brett Sciaroni, attorney for Progress Import Export Company (PIE), the Cambodian distributor of Tiger Beer. "This is the first major investment since the Royal Government's new investment law," he said.

APB, a joint venture between Fraser and Neave of Singapore, a soft drinks company, and Heineken of the Netherlands, will own 80 percent of the Cambodia Brewery Company. Cambodian company PIE will own 20 percent, enabling APB to have a lease on the site for the plant.

The $50 million investment will be made in two phases. Brewing capacity in the first phase is estimated to be 170,000 hectoliters. APB anticipates reaching a capacity of 500,000 hectoliters.

Construction of the first phase will take 18 months and is to begin in the next few weeks.. Once operational the plant will create employment for 159 local staff and full operation will employ 178, Sciaroni said. Indirectly, APB claims, it will create employment for about 1,000 people.

Cambodia is APB's largest export market for Tiger Beer and ABC stout. According to a report in Singapore's Business Times the stout has cornered 83 percent of the Cambodian market while Tiger beer has 80 percent of the lager market.

The brewery will be APB's second in Indochina - they have already built one in Ho Chi Minh City. They believe the country's economic growth will be rapid and that a growing market for beer will make brewing locally will be more profitable than importing it from Singapore.

Chief Executive Officer of APB Mr Koh Poh Tiong said, "The Cambodian authorities have shown great interest in working with us in every way.

"I am most grateful for their support and the expediency in which they have processed our investment proposal."