Cambodia’s first ever bioethanol production plant was recently inaugurated. The $40-million production facility (a venture investment by MH Bioenery Group of South Korea) will utilize cassava flour as the primary raw material. The plant has a capacity of 36,000 tons ethanol per year, and will need an annual supply of about 100,000 tons of dry cassava flour as raw material. With a cassava flour production of 536,000 tons in 2005, the plant would effectively use about one-fifth of the country’s annual cassava flour output. The ethanol produced will be initially for export, especially for the European markets. According to Prime Minister Hun Sen, who attended the opening ceremony, “This is the first ethanol factory in Cambodia and it will become the market place of cassava product for local farmers"..