Indonesia breaks ground on $5.9bn CATL-backed battery venture
REZHA HADYAN and ISMI DAMAYANTI
KARAWANG, Indonesia -- Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto on Sunday led the groundbreaking ceremony on a $5.9 billion project to build an electric vehicle battery plant and other facilities backed by China's Contemporary Amperex Technology (CATL), as the Southeast Asian nation accelerates its drive to become a regional tech hub.
Prabowo inaugurated the project in the West Java town of Karawang, where Chinese-Indonesian consortium Contemporary Amperex Technology Indonesia Battery (CATIB) is building a factory that will churn out lithium-ion batteries at a starting annual capacity of 6.9 gigawatt hours.
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