(Yicai Global) Sept. 26 -- Contemporary Amperex Technology's board has approved the firm's plan to build a power battery manufacturing plant in Lingang Economic and Technological Development Zone in Yibin in China's southwestern Sichuan province, the new energy firm announced today.

Investment in the plant will go as high as CNY10 billion (USD1.4 billion), per the announcement.

CATL will gradually build a completely new energy battery and upstream and downstream core industrial chain in Yibin, the firm stated as it signed an agreement with the local government yesterday.

Construction of the plant's first phase will be up to 26 months, and the second stage will start within two years after the first goes into operation, the announcement said, adding the complex will cover an area of around 1,000 mu (666,700 square meters), about 400 mu for the first phase, and 600 for the second.

This facility is not the company's first new energy project in Yibin. Locally-based Tianyuan Group will team with CATL and other firms to set up a lithium battery material joint venture in which CATL will invest CNY105 million (USD14.7 million) to take 15 percent stake, Tianyuan Group announced in November, saying the JV will build a lithium battery material factory with an annual capacity of 40,000 tons in two segments in the city's Jiang'an Industrial Park.

Formed in 2011, dark horse CATL has since outstripped its rivals to become the world's largest maker of lithium-ion batteries. The Ningde, Fujian province-based company supplies over 40 percent of batteries used in electric vehicles in China, where more EVs sell than in the rest of the globe put together. CATL provides its batteries to BMW, Volkswagen, Daimler and Honda, in addition to Chinese carmakers.

Editor: Ben Armour