It is easy to start a business in Cambodia...........and damn hard to make any money at it......esp. in the hospitality business, and esp in Sihanoukville.

Barang_doa_slae wrote:

phuketrichard wrote:Before u move think abut this
do u want to be in the middle of a Russian gang war?

http://www.phnompenhpost.com/big-trouble-little-russia

Cheap attack, there is much more going on in Phuket on an everyday basis

I think PR rather conveniently ignores a lot of the Phuket negative news, like last week's 59 year old Aussie who decided to film bouncers ejecting a couple from a nightclub, was attacked by them and is now up on a murder charge for effectively self defensive actions. Sure SNV has crime that you need to be aware of, just like Pattaya, Phuket or PP but it doesn't define it. It's a sideshow to daily life that most avoid.

Just be aware of it OP, same as anywhere else.

I always wonder why Sihanoukville gets labelled as sleazy by some people, but the same is never said about Phnom Penh, where there seem to be many more bars & many more girls working, & its much more common to see older western guys with young Cambodian women ?

jaynewcastle wrote:I always wonder why Sihanoukville gets labelled as sleazy by some people, but the same is never said about Phnom Penh, where there seem to be many more bars & many more girls working, & its much more common to see older western guys with young Cambodian women ?

S'ville is changing - much more western women there these days. A lot of them are Russians with young families, but also single women expats, as well as groups of women tourists. That is a big change from even 5 years ago, when the deathpats and sexpats seemed to be an overwhelmingly visible majority.
As for PP, it depends where you hang out - it's a big place and it's easy to avoid the sleazy parts if that troubles you.

However, it's obvious that tourists/expats who come to Cambodia for sex will be more numerous in places like PP, S'ville and Siem Reap, and less likely to be hanging out in small towns or in the countryside - even though there are Khmer places with women available just about everywhere, it's just more discreet.

Here is something I wrote in 2006 (from memory) about setting up a business, aimed at the bar business. (All bars in the Plaza were leased years ago and many have re- sold numerous times).

Prices have changed but the general gist is still the same.

http://www.sihanoukville-cambodia.com/s ... nlion.html

No you cannot own land, but you can lease it and build what you like on it. Many business including hotels that have sold for well over $1m have been built on leased land. At the end of the lease the owner gets the building.

Beware, the way to end up with a small fortune in Cambodia (and SHV in particular) is to start with a large one, especially if you go into business.

Most business' with less than a 6 figure investment do not make much money. You end up earning a couple of bucks an hour at best. However owning a business such as a bar can cut your cost of living down dramatically. You usually have all your drink and food covered and accommodation and the loss you run is usually way less than you would spend living in rented apartment, drinking and eating elsewhere. However you are pretty much tied to the business/bar as the personality of the business is usually your personality.

Yes, you can own land and the Phnom Penh post recently printed half a dozen ways to do it. You can set up a company to buy the land, give 51% of the shares to a local (or split them between more than one local - if you really don't trust them) but give them 0% voting rights (e.g. no legal rights to dispose of company property). You can also write a contract that allows you to replace the local without notice on the paperwork... Then you can pay them a small fee for their services on the paperwork. This is how China and Korea have been buying up swathes of the country.

TheGrinchSR wrote:Yes, you can own land and the Phnom Penh post recently printed half a dozen ways to do it. You can set up a company to buy the land, give 51% of the shares to a local (or split them between more than one local - if you really don't trust them) but give them 0% voting rights (e.g. no legal rights to dispose of company property). You can also write a contract that allows you to replace the local without notice on the paperwork... Then you can pay them a small fee for their services on the paperwork. This is how China and Korea have been buying up swathes of the country.

Sorry, but you do not own the land, the company does. You are a minority shareholder in the company. If you actually trust the rule of law in this country in regards to commercial or criminal law then you have limited experience with court/legal situations.

Questions:

1. Have you actually done this yourself?
2. Do you have a registered company and are thus aware of all the paperwork and tax filing requirements and expenses?
3. What happens when the Govt. cracks down on non trading companies like they are doing in Thailand (where foreign land ownership is done the same way)?

1. No, I have no desire to own property in Cambodia. However, a good friend of mine has and it has been straightforward.
2. Yes, I have a registered company (doing something different). The taxes are minimal on land ownership companies because they normally don't trade and thus have no revenues to report. There are still monthly and annual taxes despite this.
3. Yes, except they won't. The government is encouraging the land buy outs because they're taking lots of coin from China and Korea - two powers they can't afford to upset; unlike Thailand upsetting Americans/Europeans... who tend to be a bit toothless unless there's a mention of oil.

TheGrinchSR wrote:Yes, you can own land and the Phnom Penh post recently printed half a dozen ways to do it. You can set up a company to buy the land, give 51% of the shares to a local (or split them between more than one local - if you really don't trust them) but give them 0% voting rights (e.g. no legal rights to dispose of company property). You can also write a contract that allows you to replace the local without notice on the paperwork... Then you can pay them a small fee for their services on the paperwork. This is how China and Korea have been buying up swathes of the country.

No, in my recent experience you can't - if your articles of business show any foreign ownership, that company cannot own land in the Kingdom. This was advised directly to me, going through registration in the past month, by the Ministry of Commerce. It might be different if you're a giant multinational, but i'm guessing there are none of those represented here.