In an alley in Sihanoukville stands the skeleton of a one-story building that was originally supposed to have eight. Rusty steel bars protrude from concrete columns. Lianas swallow the fence.
It’s a holdover from the more heady days before the Covid-19 pandemic, when a flood of Chinese investment in casinos and hotels led to a construction boom in the Cambodian coastal city.
Like many landowners in the area, Ms. Heng Vouchleap and her family believed the Chinese would grab their property before it was ready for occupation. They hadn’t even planned to build exterior walls, as they relied on their future tenants to do so.
But their lucrative venture came crashing down with Cambodia’s 2019 ban on online gambling operations. According to Prime Minister Hun Sen, online gambling was used by foreign thugs to extort money.
Gambling is illegal in China, but according to experts, many Chinese circumvented the law by betting online in Cambodian casinos.
Although land-based casinos (62 in number in 2019) are still permitted, tens of thousands of Chinese have since decamped from one of the most visible grounds for Chinese influence. They were even more numerous to leave with the arrival of the pandemic.
Casinos are coming back to life
Now, thanks to the reopening of regional borders, the city’s casinos have come back to life, and migrant workers are returning in droves.
Even if, last year, China remained the main source of foreign direct investment in Cambodia, many construction sites are still at a standstill in Sihanoukville.
What catches the eye most from the balcony of a five-star downtown hotel is the carcass of a skyscraper, its torn safety nets billowing in the sea breeze.
Long Sunday, the deputy governor of the extended province of Sihanoukville (Preah Sihanouk), explains to us that there are about 800 projects on hold like that of the Vouchleap family.
As the departure of the Chinese has burst the real estate bubble and Beijing’s “zero-Covid” policy forces wealthy Chinese to stay at home, Cambodian landlords in Sihanoukville are unwilling to sell their properties or complete their buildings for now. “We will leave things as they are”says Ms. Vouchleap, who, at 28, runs a business.
It is a hazy, very unnerving situation that prevails as Cambodia, which reopened its borders last November, tries to find the road to the country’s recovery.
With the pandemic having provided an opportunity for Sihanoukville to tackle issues related to its rampant development (such as traffic congestion and waste management), Cambodia is now putting in place a more sustainable long-term plan.
China, a key investor
Last year, the country gave the province of Sihanoukville (a territory covering an area more than three times the size of Singapore) the title of “multipurpose special economic zone”.
The government has commissioned the Shenzhen Institute of Urban Planning and Design to draft a master plan to create a livable and sustainable province with higher value-added industries that will boost the country’s economic growth. .
According to officials, one of the main priorities is to diversify the sources of investment. From 2016 to March 2018, $1.1 billion [1,08 milliard d’euros] of the $1.3 billion invested in Sihanoukville came from China. This country remains the largest donor, creditor and invest