A Japanese company has decided to invest more than $1 million in the construction of an additional cashew processing plant in Kampong Thom province to increase exports to foreign markets. Touch BunHour, Secretary of State of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, spoke of the Japanese investment at a ceremony on Wednesday February 28 for the ground-breaking of the construction site of the Japanese cashew processing factory in Kampong Svay District, Kampong Thom Province. The Senior official said that by Mirat Agritech Company has decided to build a plant in Kampong Thom province to process cashew nuts for exports to overseas markets. He said that Kampong Thom has widely been known as a province with potential for agro-industrial crops, especially cashew. The senior official further said that most of Cambodia’s cashew nuts would be exported unprocessed due to the lack of drying plants, warehousing and processing methods. Prem Ratha, Deputy Governor of Kampong Thom Province, said that Kampong Thom is a province with a potential for the cultivation of agro-industrial crops such as rubber, mango and cashew. Among them, cashew crops have been planted on nearly 150,000 hectares, with an average yield of 1.5 tons per hectare per year. Kentaro Taniguchi, President of Mirat Agritech Company said that the project to build the cashew processing plant cost about $1 million. He said that the plant was 58 meters by 20 meters, equipped with production equipment that can process 10 tons of cashew nuts per day. During the ground-breaking ceremony, the Japanese company signed purchase agreements with 10 communities from the provinces of Preah Vihear and Kampong Thom.