The grand opening ceremony of the Toyo Ink factory worth US$8.4 million is held at Thilawa SEZ in Thanlyin Township on November 30 and will be run starting from December 1.

The company is planned to make the investment in Myanmar as Myanmar and Japan have a good relation and Myanmar has business opportunities, said Assistant Manager Su Wai Lwin from Human Resources Department of the Toyo Ink Company.

The company has been granted five-year tax exemption from the government as it made the investment in Thilawa SEZ.

“They assumed that the business will be good as people from printing and food packaging sectors are taken interested in this business. It will be run in next month,” said the assistant manager.

At the present, the company will be run with 20 staffs and the company took about over a year to prepare for the factory. It will appoint local staffs later.

The company is producing ink for printing industry and food packaging products and had investments in 23 countries including Thailand and Indonesia.

The company is start established in 1986 and it is intended to expand its business in Myanmar.

A total of 99 per cent of 405 hectares in Zone A of Thilawad SEZ are sold and about 50 per cent of Zone B are already sold.

Toyota is building automobile assembled plant on 21 hectares of land space at the Zone B and it is planning to start the production in 2021, according to Myanmar-Japan Thilawa Development Company Limited (MJTD).

“The MJTD has 2,400 hectares in Thilawad SEZ and Zone A has 405 hectares. Now we are developing Zone B in three phases. We sold 79 per cent of phase 1, 49 per cent of phase 2 and 62 per cent of phase 3,” said an official from the MJTD.