Serbia is to become the latest European nation to host a Chinese battery manufacturing plant under a deal with Jiangsu Reliance New Energy Technology.

Reliance, whose portfolio spans NCA and LFP chemistries, confirmed on September 1 it will invest more than €100 million ($116 million) in the first phase of the project in the municipality of Inđija. This facility will be the company’s first overseas factory.

Details of the agreement, including manufacturing capacity and the plant’s construction schedule, were not disclosed.

However, Reliance said the plant would be its first such manufacturing operation outside China and would be dedicated to high-performance battery cells.

Reliance is a cylindrical cell manufacturer and is also researching semi-solid and solid-state battery tech.

Serbian president Aleksandar Vučić, who attended the project’s signing ceremony with Serbian economy minister Adrijana Mesarovic, Indjija municipality president Marko Gasic and Reliance co-founder and COO Xu Fenlan, said Serbia would be providing unspecified investment and other support.

According to Chinese state news agency Xinhua, Vučić has said previously the plant will also support Serbian efforts to develop a domestic supply chain for batteries, robots and drones, while reducing the country’s reliance on imported components.

Xinhua said Reliance’s investment followed the recent opening of a separate factory, in the western Serbian city of Sabac, by Chinese humanoid robots producer the Minth Group.

Earlier this year, Batteries International reported that European LFP battery tech developer ElevenEs — which is backed by the venture capital arm of construction and mining giant Caterpillar — had completed the first closing of an investment round for its planned gigafactory in Serbia.