• Society

End in Sight for Sihanoukville Unfinished Buildings

• By Ou Sokmean
• January 11, 2024 11:55 AM

PHNOM PENH – The Government is expected to announce a new policy to tackle unfinished buildings scattered across coastal Sihanoukville while aiming to attract more foreign companies to invest in the new industrial hub province. 

More than three years after the departure of Chinese investors due to the closure of online gambling and the COVID-19 crisis, Sihanoukville is left with many small and large construction sites, showing how the province remains stagnant and affecting its image.

According to a report from the Provincial Department of Land Management and Urban Planning, as of Sept. 2023, of 1,069 buildings, 475 were completed and operational, 177 were non-operational, work on 364 buildings had been suspended and 53 were under construction.

Prime Minister Hun Manet said on Jan. 8 that he would announce the program to solve abandoned buildings in Sihanoukville on Jan. 25. He called 2024 the year to boost investment to tackle the stalemate.

Long Dimanche, Preah Sihanouk’s deputy governor, said that the new policy will help to solve the problem of unfinished buildings and help promote other activities, including helping investors to expand their activities.

He said the policy program will feature incentive packages for investors, both tax and non-tax, as the province has high investment potential.

Situated along the country’s coast off Gulf of Thailand, Sihanoukville has been touted as a new economic region with great potential in both tourism and transportation while the government is planning to turn the province into an active industrial zone with high technology and a hub of international financial markets in the future.    

“With these characteristics, we see Sihanoukville as an important multi-purpose special economic pole where the development is tantamount to contributing to the economic development of Cambodia as a whole,” he said.

All this potentials will attract investment activities in 2024, he said.

The special policy program to promote investment in Sihanoukville is expected to attract multinational investors from China, Malaysia and Indonesia.

“We believe that even European and American investors are very interested because in the past we have worked with the French Chamber of Commerce, the European Chamber of Commerce and the American Chamber of Commerce,” Dimanche said.

Chheng Kimlong, an economist and director of the Center for Innovation, Governance and Democracy at the Asian Vision Institute, said that the government's commitment will revitalize Sihanoukville’s economy, which is recovering from the impact of the pandemic, global tensions and the outflux of Chinese.

He said Japanese investors will also come since Sihanoukville also provide opportunities for them, particularly the investment of Preah Sihanouk port where Japan has injected billions of dollars.

“The new government policy will revitalize Sihanoukville to become a seaside special economic zone that is conducive to economic connectivity to other coastal provinces and Phnom Penh. In addition, it is for connecting sea transportation from other countries,” he said.



Originally written in Khmer for ThmeyThmey, this article was translated by Torn Chanritheara for Cambodianess.