A senior official at the Ministry of Health said that experts from the Chinese vaccines firm Sinovac Life Sciences will arrive in Cambodia on July 12 to inspect the proposed location for the construction of a vaccines manufacturing and production facility.

The ministry’s secretary of state York Sambath said on June 30 that the preliminary study has been completed and a local company working with Sinovac has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with them.

“Sinovac is reviewing and evaluating the costs of the facility. The study is almost finished and a contract will be signed afterward. Then more representatives from Sinovac will come to Cambodia on July 12 or 13,” she said.

The Sinovac experts will visit the construction site and evaluate it in relation to the technical aspects of vaccines production, preservation and packaging, with the final steps after that being the distribution and sale of the vaccines that will be produced.

The health ministry signed an MoU with Sinovac Life Sciences on Covid-19 vaccines manufacturing on June 1.

Cambodia has agreed to purchase a total of 104 million doses of vaccines from Sinovac over a two year period from 2024 to 2026.