Kao Corporation, a leading Japanese manufacturer of consumer products and chemical ingredients, has announced its plan for another consumer goods factory in Thailand’s eastern coast.

The factory is to meet increased demand when the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) is formed late next year, according to local media.

Covering 165,000 sq. m., the new factory will be built in Rayong with the capacity to respond to constant growth in domestic demand and serve new markets opened up by the AEC.

“This investment will be about twice the size of an average Kao investment in Thailand in the past four years,” the company president and chief executive Michitaka Sawada was quoted by Bangkok Post as saying.

Kao Thailand has an existing factory in Chon Buri's Amata Nakorn Industrial Estate, however the new plant in Rayong will support Kao's manufacturing base on the eastern seaboard and ease the logistics of exporting to ASEAN region.-VNA