Indofood, Indonesia’s largest instant noodle producer is establishing a production facility in Kampong Speu province in Cambodia. The factory will support its plan to capture a larger share of Cambodia’s instant noodle market as imports from neighbouring Thailand have fallen sharply amid border tensions and a widespread public boycott of Thai goods.
The new facility is slated to open by 2027 and will produce the Indomie brand for the domestic market.
With the drastic reduction in imports from Thailand, this has opened a huge gap of opportunity for suppliers from other countries to substitute demand with their own brands.
Thailand data showed Cambodia-Thailand border trade fell 23.3% year-on-year in June 2025, while Thai exports through border checkpoints dropped 23.8%. Among affected products include beverages, UHT and soy milk, soft and energy drinks, non-dairy creamer and instant coffee. According to the General Department of Customs and Excise (GDCE), Cambodia imported US$2.92 billion worth of Thai goods in 2025, down 15% from the previous year. This decline further accelerated in 2026. In January alone, Cambodian imports from Thailand fell 49.3%.
The Indofood investment represents a more significant step than simply increasing exports. Producing noodles inside Cambodia would place an Indonesian consumer brand directly within Cambodia’s manufacturing sector, reducing its reliance on imported finished products and bringing production closer to its consumers.
The factory however is not specifically designed to replace Thai products, and the investment should not be interpreted as an Indonesian initiative to displace Thai brands. Rather, its timing places Indofood in a changing Cambodian market where supply chains and consumer preferences have shifted considerably since the border dispute.
Indofood’s move into local manufacturing could provide one of the clearest examples of how Indonesia-Cambodia economic relations are evolving from conventional import-export trade towards investment and production inside the country.
