Hanging up the hard hat

Kung-fu Hillbilly · Post by **Kung-fu Hillbilly** » Thu Aug 13, 2020 6:02 pm

Phnom Penh's Koh Pich, a peninsula that has been developed from swamp to one of the capital's main development zones. Photo: Enric Català Contreras

Andrew Haffner
August 12, 2020

Who would start a major project now? … You’d have to have rocks in your head.

For workers at a site on a side-street just off Phnom Penh’s Botum Pagoda Park, the lack of construction capital has marooned them where they once worked. A group of six passed the time on a weekend afternoon in what might someday be a hotel lobby, perching themselves on construction materials set upon the sandy ground. Above them rose the concrete shell, wrapped and dormant in green mesh netting.

Reun Ry, 39, has been at this site for around five months. She’d come to pay off debt she’d incurred two years ago to buy equipment and materials for farming at her home in Kampong Cham, a venture she quit when drought spoiled her chance at harvest. At first, work in the city wasn’t too bad, and she earned about $7 per day.

The workers are just a few caught in a wider net of a runaway construction sector now running aground on the shoal of Covid-19. Construction had emerged as a powerful and consistent engine of Cambodia’s rapid economic growth in recent decades, driven for the most part by foreign direct investment (FDI) from China and other large Asian economies.

In 2019, FDI accounted for 13.29% of the Cambodian GDP of $26.7 billion, with the Council for the Development of Cambodia approving $3.5 billion in projects, about 43% of which flowed from China and Hong Kong.

The first quarter of the business year, from about January to March, saw about 1.4 million credit inquiries to banks and other financial institutions, Sothearoath said. But when the second quarter started in April and authorities ordered soft lockdown conditions in Phnom Penh, credit inquiries dropped by some 40%.

“The industry, it’s not healthy for the long term,” Tharo said. “The delay and postponement of projects might not happen just yet, but you already see the number of project sites completely shut down and some mega projects have been delayed, leaving the workers to return to their hometowns.”

fullhttps://southeastasiaglobe.com/hanging-up-the-hard-hat/

nemo · Post by **nemo** » Thu Aug 13, 2020 6:34 pm

City of Ghosts

Post by **Freightdog** » Thu Aug 13, 2020 11:38 pm

She’d come to pay off debt she’d incurred two years ago to buy equipment and materials for farming at her home in Kampong Cham, a venture she quit when drought spoiled her chance at harvest

Effectively out of work- will she now join other unemployed unfortunates being advised to become farmers? While I’m not suggesting that there is any good solution, locally, nationally or globally, it might be hoped that those in their ivory towers would pause a moment before using sound bites to give the impression that they have the solution.