Alu Hi-Tech Industries Ltd, a Chinese-owned company, is investing US$100m in a beverage can plant at Kaliakoir Hi-Tech Park in Gazipur, north of Dhaka. It would be Bangladesh’s first aluminium beverage can plant.

The plant is planned to make 100 crore (about 1bn) cans a year on a site of about 13 acres. Managing director Yuan Dingyan told The Business Standard that around 90% of output will be exported, with the rest sold in Bangladesh.

“Since the Bangladesh market is comparatively small, about 90% of total production will be exported abroad,” he said, according to the paper’s Bengali edition.

The company registered with the hi-tech park in 2024, when work on the project began. The basement is now finished. The company aims to complete the rest of the building within eight months and then start production, which points to the second half of 2027. Machinery and raw materials will come from China. No equipment suppliers have been named.The main risk to the timetable is gas. The company has asked the Bangladesh Hi-Tech Park Authority (BHTPA) for help getting a connection.

“We have held a meeting with the company this month and collected information about its gas requirements,” said Md Fazlur Rahman, BHTPA’s managing director. “Work is underway to address the issue.” He said the authority is in touch with the relevant ministries and hopes the plant will have gas by the time production starts.

Replacing imports

Bangladesh imports its beverage cans at present, at a cost in foreign currency. Canned brands on the local market include Coca-Cola, Pepsi, Sprite, Mirinda, Mountain Dew and the local soft drink Mojo, along with the energy drink Power. Because both the machinery and the aluminium will be imported, how much foreign currency the country actually saves will depend on how much the plant ends up producing and exporting.

The project adds to a growing pipeline of beverage can capacity across South Asia. In India, Crown broke ground at Unnao, Uttar Pradesh in September. Canpack and AGI Greenpac are also building plants in the state, and Ball has announced a third Indian plant for 2029. In Pakistan, Pakistan Aluminium Beverage Cans has pushed its Faisalabad plant to 1.3bn cans a year and plans a plant in Afghanistan, where a separate US$120m can plant is under construction in Herat.

Kaliakoir Hi-Tech Park, about 40km from Dhaka, has attracted mainly electronics makers such as Xiaomi, Honor and Hyundai. In August, the government said the park had received US$283m in investment against proposals worth US$1.64bn.