“MAKE SIHANOUKVILLE GREAT AGAIN”
The area has a gross domestic product ( GDP ) per capita of US$ 4, 000, which is roughly twice the Cambodian average, which is largely driven by a Chinese-run manufacturing hub.
According to provincial vice-governor Long Dimanche, who was optimistic that his town would end up little more than a game more, the Sihanoukville Special Economic Zone represents the Cambodia-China marriage.
He told AFP,” For me, whatever.” ” Look at Macau, look at Las Vegas,” the saying goes.
Sihanoukville says it was open to any purchase on a first-come, first-served schedule.
Cambodia is a little nation. We are at a loss for choices.
Cranes from Chinese development companies desperately construct Peninsula Bay, a posh seaside shopping resort, from the shore of the coast.
A project representative described the developer as a” Chinese-Cambodian” business and claimed it was intended to “make Sihanoukville great again.”
However, Chinese investment jobs have had mixed results, some turning out to be white elephants and people putting on enormous debts on their hosts.
According to Ou Virak, chairman of Thai think-tank Future Forum, the port is turning into a “ghost town” full of empty buildings.
Sihanoukville is a sign of a larger real estate crisis in China. They simply trade that to us, he said.
According to the IMF, more than a fourth of Cambodia’s US$ 11 billion in foreign debt is owed to China.
With minimal US$ 15 burden fares, the two road is typically empty, but a US$ 2 billion freeway connecting Sihanoukville to the capital Phnom Penh was constructed with Taiwanese funds and opened in 2022.
A Chinese-financed airports in Siem Reap, which opened in 2023 and is close to the UNESCO-listed heritage site of Angkor Wat, is designed to accommodate 7 million visitors annually, more than a million more than the state itself, in that year.
A 180-kilometer river connecting the Mekong River to the Gulf of Thailand is still waiting for funding from a Chinese company, about a year after its breakthrough.
There is no organic need for some of the projects, Ou Virak said, calling some of them stranded property because they were” some of the projects have been too big, too quickly, and there’s no natural demand for them.” However, “economically, you can’t claim China.”