Chinese property hunters zero in on Siem Reap

Seeing red / ‘Cambodia doesn’t have anti-China nationalism – yet
http://sea-globe.com/anti-chinese-senti ... -cambodia/

China is investing billions in Cambodia’s economy, outspending even the Kingdom’s national budget. But as more and more Cambodians raise fears of crime, corruption and colonial ambition, could rising public resentment lead the nation back to its dark days of racially motivated violence?
Ear Sophal, a Cambodian political scientist states “Cambodians are becoming alarmed, and it’s not hard to see why,” he said. “It’s not fear of small numbers of Chinese, it’s fear of large numbers of Chinese. Two hundred thousand Chinese now are legally living in Cambodia by the authorities’ own admission – God knows how many are undocumented. The knock-on effects of their presence have caused much consternation and resentment.”

You see it in the tourist hub of Siem Reap as a tuk-tuk driver spits into the dirt while watching Chinese tourists clamber into a bus scrawled with Chinese script: He tells you that people like them have come here to drive him and his people out of business.

https://www.phnompenhpost.com/supplemen ... -siem-reap
Siem Reap has started to appear on the radar of Chinese investors, which is helping to push land prices up in the provincial capital.
Chinese investors have trained their eyes on Siem Reap, the Kingdom’s top tourist destination, and are snapping up properties for development. But they have yet to complete any major projects in the provincial capital, according to local real estate experts.
Chao Sengthai, CEO of Siem Reap-based real estate firm Goal Property Service, said Chinese investors are buying up land in Siem Reap city and province, but have not developed it.
“I’ve heard of Chinese investments, but from my observation, they have only bought the land and have not built anything on it yet,” he said, adding that investment was expected to follow announcements of a new Chinese-built airport and rumours of a planned Chinatown project.
According to Sengthai, Chinese investors are buying properties near the site of the future airport. They are also partnering with local investors to buy land and divide it into smaller plots in Bakong commune, possibly with the intention of creating a small Chinatown there.

Last October 2017, the agreement to build the new airport was signed between the Cambodian government and China’s state-run Yunnan Investment Holdings, Ltd. The agreement gave the Chinese firm the exclusive right to run and manage the airport concession for 55 years under a build-operate-transfer (BOT) scheme.

Please note - the airport is now under construction.

Read more- https://www.khmertimeskh.com/113923/con ... ap-starts/
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