Singapore-listed ISDN Holdings has taken a 33 per cent stake in a joint venture that will build an 80MW hydroelectric power plant in Cambodia.

The industrial automation firm will inject $500,000 as equity into the joint venture and another $2.5 million as a shareholder loan representing the expected sum for the project’s initial development phase, it said on Monday.

The project has already received confirmation and guarantees from the Cambodian government for business rights for the construction of the plant and for the sale of electricity at a fixed price to the Cambodia Electric Power Corporation.

Its operating rights will be transferred to the corporation 35 years after the plant starts operations.

The joint venture is called SPHP and is incorporated here. Tokyo-listed eREX holds 34 per cent and Cambodian company Asia Energy Power the remaining 33 per cent.

eREX is a power producer and supplier, while Asia Energy Power is a newly incorporated Cambodian firm that builds electric power plants.

ISDN managing director and president Teo Cher Koon said the group had been looking for “lucrative opportunities” to further penetrate Asia’s renewable energy sector.

In a separate announcement on Monday, ISDN said its unit ISDN Myanmar Power has disposed of its 30 per cent stake in C&I Renewable for 822,172 yuan ($117,000) in cash.

THE STRAITS TIMES (SINGAPORE)/ASIA NEWS NETWORK