Welcome to Cambodia where everything is for sale, including islands ... gov't officials etc...

Cambodia gives permission for companies to build tourist resorts on islands

Monday, July 30, 2007
The Associated Press

PHNOM PENH, Cambodia: Cambodia's government has given its permission for six local and foreign companies to develop tourist resorts worth up to US$627 million (€460 million) on islands off the country's coast, officials said Monday.

Commerce Minister Cham Prasidh, who is also vice chairman of the Cambodian Investment Board, signed agreements in principle with the companies last Friday, said Long Sakhan, president of one of the companies.

She said her real estate firm, Vimean Seila Ltd., received permission to build a hotel and resort on a 420-hectare (1,037-acre) area of an island off Kampot province, 130 kilometers (80 miles) southwest of the capital Phnom Penh.

She said another Cambodian company and four other foreign firms are planning to develop similar tourist resorts on four islands off the coast of Sihanoukville, a port 185 kilometers (115 miles) southwest of Phnom Penh.

A Cambodian Investment Board official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the press, confirmed the signing of the agreements.

He said the companies' initial investment plans would amount to US$627 million (€460 million).

Tourism is a major hard currency earner for the impoverished Southeast Asian nation.

The government has recently been promoting the country's coastal region as a new tourist destination. Early this year, it reopened an airport in Sihanoukville in a bid to attract tourists, who have so far mostly flocked to the centuries-old Angkor temples in Siem Reap province in the northwest.

Last year, it granted permission for a Russian-run company to develop Koh Pos, or Snake Island, near Sihanoukville into a tourist resort with an initial investment of up to US$300 million (€220 million).

CDC: Entrepreneurs need to deposit for island investment

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Cambodian Press Review
By Media Consulting and Development

The Council for the Development of Cambodia (CDC) has announced that companies wishing to invest in islands on the country’s sea territory must provide a deposit of US$500,000 to US$2 million, which will be included into state budget if they fail to implement their projects, newspapers report.

“If six months has passed, [and] nothing has appeared in form, we will include that money into state budget, and we will arrange a bidding to seek a new investor,” CDC Undersecretary General Suon Sothi told investors during a meeting last week, reports Cambodge Soir.

The CDC has set the financial requirement based on a deposit of US$1,000 for one hectare of land on a island selected for project development, because some local and foreign firms have failed to develop islands as stated in investment proposals sent to the government, according to Suon Sothi, writes Rasmei Kampuchea.

“The new measure is to ‘run and follow the footstep of some investors’ [or] prevent them from requesting investment principles but leaving it unimplemented or selling and transferring it,” he said, according to the newspaper. “This is a new initiative to attract real, new investors.”

Cambodia has more than 60 islands, which can provide valuable advantages for the country’s growing tourism, Touch Seantana, secretary of state for the Council of Ministers, said, noting that neighboring Thailand and Vietnam have already benefited from these resources, continues Cambodge Soir.

Touch Seantana suggested that there should be human resource training to advance this kind of tourism, emphasizing: “Travel by boat from beaches to islands will generate a lot of profits for local citizens,” reports the French-language daily.

Om Pharin, president of the Cambodian Association of Travel Agents (Cata) , expressed satisfaction with the idea to place significant importance onto islands.

“This is in response to what we have wanted for long. Tourists not only feel interested in Siem Reap province [which houses Cambodia ’s world famous ancient temples] and Phnom Penh , but also like coastline resorts and a paradise atmosphere on islands,” he said, adding that travel agencies are ready to add those tourist destinations to their guidebooks.

Moeung Son, president of the National Association of Tourism Enterprises and Eurasia Travel, echoes Om Pharin.

“We should not pay sole attention to Siem Reap province. If one day Siem Reap suffers accidentally from serious incidents such as a terrorist attack, then the whole national tourism industry will decline,” Moeung Son told Cambodge Soir.

Cambodia offers all its islands for tourism development, Cambodia should offer Cambodia's Koh Tral Island as well

Feb 11, 2007
Cambodian islands to be developed into new tourist mecca

DPA

Phnom Penh - Cambodia's pristine islands are to be the focus of a new government push to attract developers and broaden the base of the country's growing tourism market, local media reported Sunday.

The English-language Cambodia Weekly quoted Tourism Ministry secretary of state Thon Khon as saying the 61 mostly untouched islands had been identified by the government as ideal development and investment opportunities.

The government is keen to develop its booming but narrow-based tourism industry beyond the temples of Angkor Wat in the country's north in order to create a more robust tourism economy.

'We need to link the Angkor temples to the beaches ... Although we have many tourism sites, our two biggest potential draws are the Angkor Wat temples and the beaches,' the newspaper quoted Khon as saying.

The paper also quoted investment chief for the Council for the Development of Cambodia, Sourn Sothy, as saying that there were a number of bids on the table centered around Cambodian islands in the Gulf of Thailand.

Sothy said the government was keen for rapid development in the area, and was demanding earnest money of 1,000 dollars per hectare from investors which would be forfeited by those who sat on land and failed to develop it within six months.

Last September the government announced it had signed an agreement to allow a Russian company to develop a coastal island into a tourist resort with an initial investment of up to 300 million dollars.

The Ministry of Tourism annual report released last week recorded 1.7 million visitors to Cambodia in 2006, up by nearly 20 percent. The country registered 1 billion dollars in tourism revenue in 2006, up from $832 million in 2005.

However these figures were highly dependent on visitors to Angkor Wat, the gateway of which, Siem Reap, has an international airport.

Earlier this year Sihanoukville Airport also reopened, and the Tourism Ministry has said it is keen to attract tourists from Angkor to its stunning white sand beaches and islands in the south-west of the country, around 240 kilometers from the capital.