On June 17, the first phase of the traction battery production project of Sichuan Contemporary Amperex Technology Limited (CATL-SC), a wholly-owned subsidiary of CATL, was officially put into operation. Peng Lin, deputy director of the Standing Committee of the Sichuan Provincial People's Congress, Liu Zhongbo, secretary of the Yibin Municipal Party Committee, Du Ziping, mayor of Yibin City, Robin Zeng, chairman of CATL and other industry enterprise representatives attended the launching ceremony.

Liu Zhongbo, secretary of the Yibin Municipal Party Committee, said: "The launch of the first phase of the CATL-SC traction battery production base project marks CATL achieving another key milestone in developing CATL-SC as a world-class traction battery research and development and production base, and unveils a new stage of the effective coordinated development of Yibin's new energy automobile industry and traction battery industry."

Dr. Robin Zeng, chairman of CATL, said: “The Yibin production base is an important part of CATL's global layout, and it is being developed to become CATL's most important traction battery production base with strategic significance in Southwest China. Featuring higher efficiency, the Yibin production base will deliver supporting services to OEM partners not only in China, but also around the world. CATL-SC is heading on the global stage.” 

Since September 2019, CATL and the city government of Yibin have successively signed contracts for the CATL-SC traction battery phase I to phase VI projects, with a total investment of more than RMB 30 billion and an area of about 3,000 acres (about 1,214 hectares). Yibin has a great foundation for building a transportation network, which will greatly improve the logistics efficiency and help to deliver traction batteries from the Yibin production base to the vehicle production lines in Chengdu or Chongqing within only three hours. The rich water resources in Yibin can also satisfy the company's carbon emission reduction requirements in manufacturing, eventually helping to achieve carbon neutrality throughout the life cycle of traction batteries.