Saudi-based Basic Electronics Company has joined hands with leading Chinese electric appliances group Gree to break ground on its new smart factory in Dammam that will manufacture HVAC (heating, ventilation and air-conditioning) products.

Spanning 70,000 sq m in the first phase, the new Al Asasyah Advanced Industry HVAC Smart Factory will manufacture smart air-conditioners with VRF (variable refrigerant flow) technology, integrated with photovoltaic energy production technology. More than 2,000 employees will work at this factory.

 A specialist in the manufacture of sustainable air-conditioners, the Al Asasyah unit will be implemented in two phases, said senior officials at the ground-breaking ceremony held in the presence of Gree Electric Appliances Chairman and CEO Dong Meng Zhu and other senior officials.

In the first phase, smart and innovative laboratories will be set up within the industrial complex for testing devices in addition to research and development centres as well as a training unit, while Phase Two will include the production of all technologies of AC solutions using the latest industrial technologies such as artificial intelligence and digitisation systems produced by strategic partner Gree, which holds many patents.

 Since its establishment in 1961, Basic Electronics Company has been engaged in the manufacture and sales of household appliances, commercial electronic appliances, air conditioners, monitoring and control as well as medical devices.

In a bid to support the localisation of industry, the company’s management had set up a factory for manufacturing smart meters in the kingdom’s Eastern Province with a production capacity of more than 300,000 meters per year, it added.