The country’s average annual economic growth has been around 7 per cent for the past 20 years. Together with the garment industry, tourism and agriculture, construction is the engine of growth. China is the largest foreign investor. For PIME Missionary, "The shape of cities and landscapes has changed".
Phnom Penh (AsiaNews) – Construction projects completed in the Kingdom since 2000, today have a total value of more than US$ 44 billion, this according to Chea Sophara, Cambodia’s Minister of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction.
Sophara spoke about it at a meeting yesterday on construction control, following the collapse last month of a Chinese-owned seven-storey building in Preah Sihanouk province, southwestern Cambodia, that left 28 people dead and 26 injured.
Between 2000 and May of this year, the Ministry approved 45,264 now completed construction projects nationwide.
The minister acknowledged that many of them were built without proper consideration for construction regulations and adequate quality standards nor concern for the competency of construction companies.
In 2018, the ministry approved 2,867 projects, worth US$ 5.2 billion dollars, down from 3,052 projects and US$ 6.4 billion in 2017. In 2018, more than 200,000 “young people" were employed in the sector.
Sophara said that 1,324 high-rises nationwide are at least five storeys tall, as well as 258 residential project sites.
In the past two decades, Cambodia has achieved an average annual growth of about 7 per cent. Along with the garment industry, tourism and agriculture, construction is the fourth key area to support growth.
Most of the money invested in construction projects is locally sourced, with China as the largest foreign investor.
Between January and April of this year, the Ministry approved construction investment projects valued at approximately US$ 2.7 billion, including about US$ 367 million from foreign sources.
Chinese investors accounting for approximately US5 million of all foreign investment. Some 226 Chinese and 61 ASEAN country construction companies are registered with the Ministry.
"The building boom is changing the shape of Cambodian cities and landscapes," said Fr Luca Bolelli, a priest with the Pontifical Institute for Foreign Missions (PIME), speaking with AsiaNews.
Fr Bolelli has been engaged in missionary work in Cambodia for almost 12 years. For the past ten, he has been the parish priest in Kdol Leu, a village in Kompong Cham, a province north-east of the capital.
"A real transformation is underway in the country, in particular in the field of infrastructure," he explained. "Even if I live in a rural environment, I notice a big difference compared to when I first arrived in Kdol Leu.”
“At the time there was no electricity, no paved roads, no running water and no internet. Today not only there is all this available, but work is also underway to build a bridge financed by China.
“Ten years ago, going to Phnom Penh (more than 100 km away) meant stopping in the city overnight. The journey was so long and tiring. Now it is possible to go and return from the capital in one day.
“Seniors who lived through the hell of Pol Pot's dictatorship tell me they would never have imagined such a change.
For the PIME missionary, “Phnom Penh’s transformation is impressive. During my first years in Cambodia, going to Thailand was like moving from the third to the first world. Now I don't feel this difference anymore.”