Chinese, Thai firms ride novel chances

Sound partnership: Employees handle threads made from recycled plastic bottles at a factory in Rayong. The region is home to more than 170 Chinese-invested companies, providing 40,000 jobs. ― Bloomberg

BANGKOK: About two hours’ drive from downtown Bangkok, near the Laem Chabang port in eastern Thailand, is a well-planned industrial zone, the Thai-Chinese Rayong industrial zone.

Jointly built by China’s Holley Group and Amata Group of Thailand in 2006, the industrial zone is one of the first Chinese overseas industrial sites and has become a testament to and miniature of the win-win cooperation and common development between China and the Association of South-East Asian Nations or Asean.