Investvine.com-14 Jan 2018
Cambodia and China on January 11 signed 19 agreements worth several billion dollars to develop the impoverished Southeast Asian country’s infrastructure, agriculture and healthcare. The agreements and memorandums of understanding were signed during a meeting between Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen and his Chinese counterpart, Li Keqiang, who led a senior delegation on a daylong official to Cambodia, China’s close ally.
Among the major agreements was building a new expressway more than 200 kilometers long linking the capital, Phnom Penh, with the resort city of Sihanoukville, and a new Phnom Penh international Airport. China will invest some $2 billion for the highway alone.
In the past, Chinese investors, together with a strongly growing number of Chinese tourists, have already greatly contributed to socio-economic development and poverty reduction in Cambodia, Cambodian business community leaders said.
China is both the largest sources of foreign direct investment and tourists to Cambodia. According to a report by the Council for the Development of Cambodia, the fixed asset investment from China accounted for 20.2 per cent of the total investment in Cambodia from 1994 to 2017.
Chinese investors have invested in various sectors in Cambodia, including garment and footwear, energy, infrastructure, telecoms, banking and finance, agriculture, agro-industry, as well as real estate and construction. China is also investing in a huge, top-modern football stadium north of Phnom Penh.
In 2017, Cambodia attracted the fixed asset investment of $1.43 billion from China, or 27 per cent of the total investment in the country last year. In the tourism sector, Chinese visitors to the Cambodia surpassed the one million-mark last year, bringing around $700 million into the Cambodian economy, according to Cambodian Tourism Minister Thong Khon.
In return, Cambodia is supporting China’s policies in Southeast Asia and its hegemonial approach towards the South China Sea in supranational bodies.
