Yoolim Lee and Netty Ismail
BLOOMBERG NEWS
SINGAPORE — Kith Meng grew up in Australia as an orphan and a refugee from Cambodia's genocide. He tells of washing dishes and mowing lawns to make ends meet while living in Canberra. Being a poor outsider made him stronger, he says, and unusually driven.
Now, back in Cambodia since 1991, the 39-year-old has built his Royal Group into an empire that owns Cambodia's biggest mobile phone company and television network and is developing a $2 billion resort and casino on a fishermen's island off Cambodia's coast.
The country's most-successful businessman, he supports Prime Minister Hun Sen and benefits from ties to the government, which granted the 99-year lease on the island for his resort. He is a Neak Oknha, an honor the royal family confers on a few of the wealthiest members of society.
Thousands of former refugees, with their own harrowing stories, have returned to Cambodia, and now investors hoping to profit in the next frontier market - a term Standard & Poor's coined for economies smaller or less developed than traditional emerging markets - are coming to the country, too.
The entrepreneurial drive and technical skills the returnees bring with them are breathing life into the economy. Three decades after Pol Pot exterminated the country's educated classes and emptied its cities, Cambodia's gross domestic product is just $8 billion a year.
"Suffering is my mentor," says Kith Meng, who fled the terror, first to a refugee camp in Thailand and then, in 1981, to Australia. Black-and-white photographs of his parents adorn one wall of his office in the capital city of Phnom Penh. They starved to death during Pol Pot's reign, when Cambodia's fertile countryside became the "killing fields." They were two victims among the 1.7 million, or 20 percent of the population, who perished.
Political and business leaders are grappling with poverty, inadequate health care, poor education and a lack of roads in this nation of 14 million. Corruption is slowing progress, says Joseph Mussomeli, the U.S. ambassador.
"The trick with a frontier market is getting the timing right," says Douglas Clayton, who founded Leopard Cambodia Fund LP last year and is raising $100 million to invest in real estate, banking and agribusiness. "Cambodia is really a discovery story - and it's being discovered."
Cambodia grew 9.5 percent a year from 2000 to 2007, the fastest pace in Asia after China, which expanded 9.9 percent a year. Political stability under the administration of Hun Sen, 56, has helped the Cambodian economy take off, says Bretton Sciaroni, chairman of the American Cambodian Business Council in Phnom Penh.
Hun Sen has run the country since 1985. He came to prominence as a communist while the Vietnamese occupied the country, having pushed Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge from the capital. He strengthened his grip with a landslide victory for his Cambodian People's Party in July's parliamentary elections.
An opposition leader has purported manipulation of voter rolls, and the royalist party that shared power in the 1990s has been reduced to two seats in the legislature.
Clothing exports and tourism have buoyed the tiny economy, though the revenue of any of the world's 500 largest companies would still dwarf Cambodia's annual economic output.
A 1994 law to open the country to foreign investors has encouraged some to put money in it. Approved foreign direct investment rose to a record $4.4 billion in 2006, according to the Cambodian Investment Board. Investors can own 100 percent of a company, and they face no restrictions on taking money in and out of the country - in contrast to China or Vietnam.
Still, the business council's Mr. Sciaroni, a former lawyer at the White House under President Reagan, says perceptions of Cambodia have not caught up to the changes.
"Where the perceived risks are greater than actual risks, investment opportunities are the result," says Robert Ash, a former executive at the asset management arm of insurer American International Group Inc. "Such is the case of Cambodia."
Now, back in Cambodia since 1991, the 39-year-old has built his Royal Group into an empire that owns Cambodia's biggest mobile phone company and television network and is developing a $2 billion resort and casino on a fishermen's island off Cambodia's coast.
The country's most-successful businessman, he supports Prime Minister Hun Sen and benefits from ties to the government, which granted the 99-year lease on the island for his resort. He is a Neak Oknha, an honor the royal family confers on a few of the wealthiest members of society.
Thousands of former refugees, with their own harrowing stories, have returned to Cambodia, and now investors hoping to profit in the next frontier market - a term Standard & Poor's coined for economies smaller or less developed than traditional emerging markets - are coming to the country, too.
The entrepreneurial drive and technical skills the returnees bring with them are breathing life into the economy. Three decades after Pol Pot exterminated the country's educated classes and emptied its cities, Cambodia's gross domestic product is just $8 billion a year.
"Suffering is my mentor," says Kith Meng, who fled the terror, first to a refugee camp in Thailand and then, in 1981, to Australia. Black-and-white photographs of his parents adorn one wall of his office in the capital city of Phnom Penh. They starved to death during Pol Pot's reign, when Cambodia's fertile countryside became the "killing fields." They were two victims among the 1.7 million, or 20 percent of the population, who perished.
Political and business leaders are grappling with poverty, inadequate health care, poor education and a lack of roads in this nation of 14 million. Corruption is slowing progress, says Joseph Mussomeli, the U.S. ambassador.
"The trick with a frontier market is getting the timing right," says Douglas Clayton, who founded Leopard Cambodia Fund LP last year and is raising $100 million to invest in real estate, banking and agribusiness. "Cambodia is really a discovery story - and it's being discovered."
Cambodia grew 9.5 percent a year from 2000 to 2007, the fastest pace in Asia after China, which expanded 9.9 percent a year. Political stability under the administration of Hun Sen, 56, has helped the Cambodian economy take off, says Bretton Sciaroni, chairman of the American Cambodian Business Council in Phnom Penh.
Hun Sen has run the country since 1985. He came to prominence as a communist while the Vietnamese occupied the country, having pushed Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge from the capital. He strengthened his grip with a landslide victory for his Cambodian People's Party in July's parliamentary elections.
An opposition leader has purported manipulation of voter rolls, and the royalist party that shared power in the 1990s has been reduced to two seats in the legislature.
Clothing exports and tourism have buoyed the tiny economy, though the revenue of any of the world's 500 largest companies would still dwarf Cambodia's annual economic output.
A 1994 law to open the country to foreign investors has encouraged some to put money in it. Approved foreign direct investment rose to a record $4.4 billion in 2006, according to the Cambodian Investment Board. Investors can own 100 percent of a company, and they face no restrictions on taking money in and out of the country - in contrast to China or Vietnam.
Still, the business council's Mr. Sciaroni, a former lawyer at the White House under President Reagan, says perceptions of Cambodia have not caught up to the changes.
"Where the perceived risks are greater than actual risks, investment opportunities are the result," says Robert Ash, a former executive at the asset management arm of insurer American International Group Inc. "Such is the case of Cambodia."
12 comments:
Kith Meng,
You should be careful with your expansion. A lot of famous American banks and investment companies who have a lot of smart and talent people working for them filed bankcrupcy in these past weeks. So watch out your investment. It might explode one day. Don't try to show off too much and grab people lands. Look at Dot Com (.com) earned a lot of money and salary in the 90; now they're all nearly gone.
is it true investment or?????....money from anywhere else...kit in control or...who else control.....and steal from our belove country.....money that shouldgo to the gov...go to who and who....any how...good luck...and enjoy robbing....from our belove cambodia since all cambodian love and vote it for them to rob.....
12:22AM all those people, voted for CPP, are enjoying their life in Cambodia, only your stupid family and ah sam raisy is suffering! We will see you go to Prey Sar soon!
Hi 11:22
Could I offer you a better example, that of Mikhail Khodorkovsky. He was Russian riches man. He made is money from Russian oil privatization in the 90s. But then he failed out of favor with the rule-of-man. He is now in jail. There no laws to protect him.
When there is no laws, one day you are on top of the world but suddenly your in deep shit. Just ask those close to Hitler and Stalin.
This orphan (Kith Meng) is enjoying the fruits of his labor. He seems to forget why he is an orphan. He is now reunited with the very people that perhaps killed his family. I guess some people can forgive and forget. Very sad!!
Kith Meng is an up front runner business of Hun Sen.
The suffering is his mentor and also he'll receive back from his debt karma that he had deposited into his evilly accounts.
The suffering will teach him more to learn when his time is up.
I never stop being amazed of how the power of money can eat up these people's soul so fast. If these leeches look out the windows of their highrise they will see the reminder of the killing field everywhere. If the think that the killing field is finished they are just kidding themselves.
What goes up must come down - it's a nautural law.
The root cause of corruption is due to this tolerated conduct:
100% revenue collected -- (for party + elites, clans of the party + individuals collecting the revenue)= State revenue-Any left after the systemic corruption.
That's why position tenures do not scare abit to commit corruption as long as they can earn money for the party, serve their boss well with the assigned sum of money and keep some for themselves.
And corruption will go on endlessly!
He one told an interviewer that he reckoned that the Australia used to be a very discriminatory society. I personally think that this is the main force of motivation to make his fortune. He might have been looked down by the Whites, and now just want to show them back.
Yes whites society are very discriminatory. They always regards their cultures as more supperior than us. I personally suffered alot during the study time in western society. It is really hard to comply the western culture and look down at your own culture which have imprinted in your mind.
Khmers have to ask this question:
-When a deputy secretary of foreign affair from Siam announced that actually Khmer soldiers are causing the military confrontation and standoff, and any Khmers leaders in the gov.t demanded the statement be clarify and modified? Those gov.t leaders are what if not cowadices and brainless!
-And how long the gov.t want to drag in non-unofficial negotiation when all the decisions and validity all must be agreed by Ah Choy Mray Ah Sdach Siam?
The wild-beast animal typical Hun Sen is cowardly tolerating coz there is nothing he can do with the deficiency and poorly-equipped soldiers ... and Siam can sense that khmer soldiers don't want to fight at all...or should they fight to protect the well-being for just a bunch of leeches in Cambodia? What will the soldiers gain in return? Families left behind .. land grabbing and who on earth care about their well-being before? NONE!!
Dear Kith Meng,
You are already rich and successful! We admire you so much.
However, why do you still invest in sin businesses such as Casino, gambling, building Entertainment center (Rock Center) next door to University to destroy the future of young Cambodian as bambooshot of the nation.
Now, his Mobitel Advertisement is only about promoting young people to play game!
You are too rich already, why you still need to buy 1,200 seats National Cultural (Bassac) Theatre and replaced with shitty 300 small theatre? Why do you need to do harmful to Khmer culture?
Khmer culture has already received enough suffering and destruction.
Perhap, Kith Meng should spend more time to watch Khmer Art Performance rather then spending time at Naga Casino.
god, i can't stand people who bitches all the time. how about doing something to make a difference. stop the hate; show some love for your brothers and sisters. maybe that will make the world a better place for all to enjoy. remember, we all sharing the same earth, so stop the hate. it is call survival mentality, and of course, this mentality can shift gear as the situation is becoming better. having too much hate for any human being can shorten your life as too much stress and depression can take a toll on your health. please have an optimistic outlook in life; maybe someone else will recipricate that in return. remember, when people die, they can take the material things with them, so be good to others so your soul can feel satisfied and rest in peace when one passes away as nobody on the planet can live forever. life's too short, please stop the hate and live life to the fullest. god bless cambodia.
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