Three of Japan’s largest corporations—Mitsubishi, Marubeni and Sumitomo—signed a deal with Burma’s government on Tuesday to develop an industrial complex outside Rangoon, reports Xinhua. The three companies will hold a 49 percent stake in a consortium that also includes the Burmese government and local enterprises to transform Thilawa, a port near Burma’s largest city, into a special economic zone. “[Burma] has cheap and abundant labor power and we believe that Thilawa has a very high potential as a production base,” Marubeni official Toru Kabeya said at a press conference. The project is expected to start commercial operation in 2015.