March 6 -- Shares of Guangdong Kingshine Electronic Technology rose after it announced its plans to build sodium-ion battery factories.

Kingshine [SHE: 300903] was trading up 2.9 percent at CNY14.35 (USD2.08) as of 1.15 p.m. today.

Printed circuit board maker Kingshine said late on March 3 that it had inked a letter of investment intent with the local government of Xinfeng county in Jiangxi province to build a CNY2 billion (USD289.3 million) sodium-ion battery plant with an annual capacity of 6 gigawatt-hours.

But the industry newcomer did not mention further details of the project such as the construction schedule, the source of its battery technology and fund and what its products will be used for.

Sodium-ion batteries are very similar to lithium-ion batteries but are cheaper. They can be used as a substitute for lithium batteries in applications with relatively low energy density needs. The sodium-ion batteries already on the market are mainly used in the energy storage battery field and are rarely used in electric vehicles because EVs need batteries with higher energy density.