angkorjohn2 wrote: ↑Sat Sep 28, 2019 4:53 pm
On a side note MM, talking of the BooYong development, do you know where is that at in terms of development plans? Expected completion date? it seems to have been stop-start, with more stop than start since it's inception over the last 7+ years. I know there are several projects of course that floundered due to financing and poor planning especially around there but considering it is attached to BooYong you would assume it would be a bit embarrassing if it wasn't done considering how many projects broke ground after and were completed earlier

The new main contractors are moving along at a fast pace. You can see they are using Concrete Paneling Work for the structural elements, hence the speed. I am wary of bidding for the power cables for this development due to the stop-start, but maybe things have changed. I am due on-site next week to get more info, so will let you know.

Other projects I have seen are now just concrete shells with tatty old green netting flapping in the wind and litter Phnom Penh. Mainly, these were based on selling the apartments at an early stage and financing through to completion, which, of course, did not occur.

Many times I wish I was back in Civil Engineering as they get paid first, but I haven't had that kind of break here, due to the locals being so good at it, so I am stuck with MEP and ELV.

Back to Booyoung - most people are afraid to bid for the MEP as rumors on the grapevine are that they are slow to pay. I would guess they will use Vietnamese labor as the main contractor has successfully built a similar project in Vietnam.

I have been invited onto the Booyoung 2 project, via a Korean project management company CACPM. I am still waiting for the finalised drawings.

If you are interested and have construction skills, let me know.

Article on the growing Phnom Penh wealth gap, (from a couple of months back):

Wealth gap grows as Cambodia modernises
Paritta Wengkiat
09.07.2019
Cambodia is urbanising fast with China’s help but the gulf between rich and poor is widening

Crossing the bridge into Koh Pich (“Diamond Island”), a new commercial district in the east of Phnom Penh, 27-year-old Saro Le felt alienated from the city that has been her home for over 10 years.

Once empty swampland, Koh Pich now glitters with luxurious condominiums and mixed-use development projects. The major property buyers and developers here are Chinese.

“One side of the city is a fancy district. The other side is slums with a lot of poor people. The city is kind of split into two unconnected worlds,” said Saro, a white-collar worker who was raised in a poor family. She looks at a giant replica of the Arc de Triomphe surrounded by new apartments, some with neo-classical themes.

This “little Paris” is a part of a commercial project called Elysée developed by the Overseas Cambodian Investment Corporation (OCIC), whose owner is of Khmer-Chinese descent.

Poverty affects around 35% of Cambodians, according to a report from the United Nations Development Program (UNDP) and the Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative. But there’s no sign of scarcity in Koh Pich.

In one corner of the island, construction workers are busy on the US$700 million Diamond Island Riviera, which includes a shopping mall, a hospital and three residential towers linked by a cantilevered garden similar to the famous Marina Bay Sands hotel in Singapore. The developer is a joint venture between OCIC and China-based Jixiang Investment.

Small- to medium-sized businesses run by Chinese entrepreneurs are evident too – restaurants, cosmetics stores, a lighting design consultant. Property brokers display prices in Chinese yuan.
https://www.chinadialogue.net/article/s ... modernises

This gap is a throwback to Cambodia under the ‘golden years’. Massive gap between rich and poor. Middle class city folks living it up - arts and music flourished while the rural poor toiled to survive. Then the Khmer Rouge came along and tried to make everyone equal.

Except this time Iron Man has cozied up to the Mainland China and crushed the only viable opposition.

And the CPP controls the countryside where the Khmer Rouge got their start.

Pity the poor.

Everyone is getting richer. Sure, the rich are getting MUCH richer, but the strides in the countryside are staggering. Despite appearances, people have money and the country folk are way better off now than they were ten years ago. The whole country is seeing a boom and is thus content, thus the political status quo. Whether or not they were his doing, people have seen previously unfathomable changes under HE, so they're happy the way things are.

"but I don't believe this 'poor' crap"

did somebody write that?

The disconnect is not spacial. It's mental.
and very real.

Yeah, not sure about this. I was just in the province for Pchum Ben, haven't been out for at least a year. Still plenty of shacks and mud roads, but plenty of new build houses and concrete streets.

Not far away some of the old baw baw and noodle shops now have a massive wine rack and a proper coffee machine and industrial fridges selling the usual soft drink crap along with fresh milk and yogurt. Even the standard 'pringles and diapers' baby shop have upped the game and have a few things in stock that would interest a westerner (pasta, ragu, salad sauces etc). A Chinese supermarket has opened close to the main market, which isn't Lucky, but has a few things in stock, albeit a little overpriced.

Also a PTT with a minimart selling a fair range of spirits and an Amazon next door within an easy drive on road 1. Prey Veng, at least may be liveable fairly soon. Hear similar reports from other outlaying provinces like Speu, Takeo and Cham.