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Cambodia: Call for more development near capital’s new airport
A senior government official has called on property developers to focus more on development projects in the area of the new international airport, where there is good potential.
General Kun Kim, senior minister and secretary general of Cambodia Veterans Association made a call early this month when he attended the ground-breaking of a 36-storey condominium project, Leedon Heights in Phnom Penh’s Sen Sok district.
He said the government supported cooperation between local and foreign investors which he said showed the success of the private sector in complying with Cambodia’s government policy and providing confidence for local and the international investors to join in the Kingdom’s economic development growth as well as reducing poverty.
“We urge developers to look in to other potential areas, especially the area of new Phnom Penh International Airport in Kandal province,” he said.
Kim said the private sector is an important source to promote national economic development while currently the country is seeing more foreign companies coming in.
“Cambodia need more capital investment to boost the country’s economic growth. That is why the government has amended the new investment law to ease doing business and investment,” he said.
Located in the province south of Phnom Penh, the new Phnom Penh International Airport is being developed by Cambodia Airport Investment Co Ltd, a joint-venture between local conglomerate OCIC, owned by Pung Kheav Se, and the government’s State Secretariat of Civil Aviation.
The total investment of $1.5 billion will come from loans from foreign banks, $280 million from OCIC and $120 million in registration capital.
The new airport will be divided into three phases of development with the first phase opened by 2023, according to Pung Kheav Se, chairman of OCIC.
Chrek Soknim, president of the Cambodian Valuers and Estate Agents Association, said once the new airport is finished, the real estate and construction sectors in Cambodia will attract more investors.
“I think that the area will be well developed but it will take time depending on how fast the airport project is developed. Then other projects will follow suit,” he said.
Sokknim said at first the area will see more warehouse projects to store goods from the airport followed by restaurants, shopping malls, accommodation and other residential schemes.
He said the land price in the area or around the airport currently starts from $60 per square metre to $120, depending on the location.
With the Coronavirus pandemic, the rate of increase in general transactions in the Kingdom’s real estate sector have been slightly down because they tend to be limited to local people. Prices have not much changed either, according to Soknim.
According to figures from the Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction, 2,522 projects were approved in the first half of this year with a value of more than $3.842 billion, an increase from 1,047 projects in the same period last year valued at $3.392 billion, an increase of 13.26 percent.
Source: https://www.khmertimeskh.com/50756645/call-for-more-development-near-capitals-new-airport/