Giant Development in Cambodia Hinges on Chinese Buyers
There is an island in Cambodia that, unlike others in Southeast Asia, is not the object of an ownership dispute. But it is equally clear whom its current owners would like to land there: Chinese property buyers. If all goes according to plan, Koh Pich — Diamond Island in English — a 100-hectare, or about 250-acre, spit of land hugging downtown Phnom Penh’s shoreline, will be home to more than 1,000 condominiums, hundreds of villas, two international schools, a replica of the Arc de Triomphe, a near-clone of Singapore’s Marina Bay Sands Hotel and one of the world’s tallest buildings. But in a city with a history of stalled real estate projects, the future of the island, in the Mekong River, is far from certain. Phnom Penh, Cambodia’s capital, is coming into its own as a regional business destination, and investment in its property market totaled $1.9 billion in the first half of 2013, compared with $1.2 billion in 2011, according to Leng Vandy, senior associate at the financial services company SBI Royal Securities. Even as mainland Chinese property investors have pushed prices up in Hong Kong, London and Vancouver, they are also injecting piles of cash into smaller cities, including Yangon, Myanmar; Chiang Mai, Thailand; and Vientiane, Laos. Phnom Penh, a city of nearly two million, is no different. …
Chris Horton
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/07/realestate/commercial/giant-development-in-cambodia-hinges-on-chinese-buyers.html?_r=1
