(Yicai) Sept. 24 -- Shares of Yunnan Energy New Materials advanced after the leading Chinese lithium battery separator supplier said it plans to build a new factory in Malaysia.

Yunnan Energy [SHE: 002812] was trading up 7.4 percent at CNY26.27 (USD3.73) as of 1.45 p.m. in Shenzhen today. The Shenzhen Component Index [SHE: 399001] rose 3.9 percent.

Yunnan Energy will set up a subsidiary in Malaysia that will invest CNY2 billion (USD284 million) to build a plant with an annual production capacity of one billion square meters of lithium battery separator in the Southeast Asian country, the Yuxi-based firm announced yesterday.

The new production facility will promote the company’s smooth overseas expansion, strengthen its leading position in the lithium battery separator industry, and improve its global business layout, Yunnan Energy noted, without revealing any further details.

In June, Yunnan Energy announced it would invest EUR447 million (USD497 million) in the second phase of its lithium battery separator plant in Hungary. The firm’s USD276 million factory in the United States is under construction.

Yunnan Energy was China’s largest lithium battery separator supplier last year, with an output of nearly 7.1 billion sqm. It sold 6.2 billion sqm of separators in 2023, achieving a business revenue of CNY10.1 billion (USD1.4 billion), accounting for about 84 percent of the company’s total.

By the end of last year, Yunnan Energy’s total annual production capacity had reached 9.38 billion sqm, according to the company’s latest annual report.

Editor: Futura Costaglione