Samart builds Cambodian empire without Thaksin's help [-The sh_t hits the fan among Cambodia's corrupt officials?]

Sun Chanthol, a former Funcinpec minister, defected to join the CPP following Funcinpec's demise. He is now a minister without portfolio in Hun Xen's regime. What The Nation failed to mention is that Samart's Siam Cement plant is a joint venture with Cambodia's Khaou Chuly group and Khaou Chuly happens to be Sun Chanthol's father-in-law. (Photo: The Phnom Penh Post)

November 19, 2009
By Usanee Mongkolporn
The Nation

While rumours fly that Samart's ties with ousted prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra and Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen are close enough to fake the arrest of its employee, an investigation by The Nation tells a different story.

Samart embarked on expansion into the neighbouring country through Charoenrath Vilailuck's personal connection to Cambodian politician-cum-businessman Sun Chanthol.

Chanthol, a Harvard University graduate, was known for his business smarts. He was the public-works and transport minister until last year.

Charoenrath is the older brother of Watchai, CEO of Samart.

Through the connection with Charoenrath, Cambodia handed the company a concession for the nascent mobile-phone market, and Cambodia Samart Communications was born in 1992.

The following year, Cambodia Shinawatra was set up as a subsidiary of Shin Satellite to penetrate the mobile-phone market in the neighbouring country.

Telecom insiders recall Chanthol was a close aide to Prince Norodom Ranariddh, who was prime minister before Hun Sen took power.

"The connection led to the air-traffic-control concession going to Samart in 2001," a source said. "Samart indeed entered the country before Thaksin."

In that year, Cambodia Air Traffic Services (CATS) was formed to run the 22-year concession. Thaksin was present at the ceremony when Cambodia extended the concession from 15 years to 22.

Back then, Shin Corp, Thaksin's family business, faced troubles in expanding there when the mobile-phone concession was shortened.

From CATS, Samart moved to building a power plant to support the Siam Cement Group's new plant there.

The Vilailuck family also won a 99-year concession to open a museum in Siem Reap, but it has performed badly financially, because visitors tend to flock to a South Korean museum nearby.

This explains why Watchai was in the hot seat and cried for help when his business was tampered with by the Cambodian government. Without any political involvement now, he is seeking to further distance Samart from politics.

Truth behind the hoopla: Kampot Cement is 90% owned by Siam Cement Group

Left: Hun Sen and VIPs touring the cement plant, Right: View of the plant (Photo: CPP)

SIAM CEMENT GROUP: Cambodia plant starts up

Saturday January 19, 2008
POST REPORTERS
Bangkok Post

Siam Cement Group's joint-venture cement plant in Cambodia officially started operations yesterday to tap rapid demand growth in Thailand's neighbour.

Kampot Cement (KCC), is a 90:10 joint venture between SCG and the Khaou Chuly Group, Cambodia's leading construction and engineering firm.

The joint venture company was established with investment capital of US$100 million, or 3.2 billion baht, and can produce 900,000 tonnes of Portland cement a year, according to SCG cement president Pramote Techasupatkul.

Output from the Kampot plant mainly served domestic consumption. Demand in Cambodia has grown faster than supply.

''Our additional capacity will lower the country's dependence on imported cement, which will reduce its trade deficit,'' Mr Pramote added.

The company also aims to see its production technology transferred to local operators through its contractor training programme.

SCG hopes to become a leader in Asean with heavy investments in pulp and paper, petrochemicals and cement.

Apart from Kampot, SCG's other investments in Cambodia include Cpac Cambodia, a ready-mix cement business; Cpac concrete products; Cpac Monier roofing tile products; and engine parts and lube oil from Siam Kubota Industry.

Hun Sen cautions on explosives used at the newly opened cement factory - 1997 Explosions still bring bad memories to Hun Sen?

Hun Sen Urges Caution on Explosives

By Chun Sakada, VOA Khmer
Original report from Phnom Penh
14 January 2008

Prime Minister Hun Sen warned on Monday that terrorists could find their way to explosives from a newly opened cement factory if vigilance lapses.

Speaking at the opening of the $90-million factory in Kampot province, Hun Sen said terrorists needed explosives like those housed at the factory.

“The control of explosives must be carried out neatly, according to regulations,” he said.

His comments follow statements made by Cambodia’s national police chief that counterterrorism work with the FBI has been productive.

Cambodia has in recent years become a willing partner to the US in its counterterrorism efforts.

There are no known terrorist threats in Cambodia, although in 2003 it was discovered that a senior leader of the Islamic fundamentalist group Jemaah Islamiya had taken refuge in Cambodia before traveling to Thailand.

Cambodia opens first big cement plant [-It's not 100% Cambodian-owned though]

KAMPOT, Cambodia, Jan 14 (Reuters) - Cambodia's first major cement plant, a $93 million joint venture with Thailand's Siam Cement SCC.BK, opened on Monday, another symbol of the war-scarred southeast Asian's nation rapid economic development.

The factory, in the coastal province of Kampot, is expected to produce 960,000 tonnes of cement this year, reducing Cambodia's reliance on imported materials for the construction boom reshaping its capital, Phnom Penh.

Siam Cement and top Cambodian building firm Khaou Chuly Group said their joint venture, Kampot Cement Co., should be producing double that quantity in 2009 and 2010.

At the factory's opening ceremony, Prime Minister Hun Sen said Cambodia had been importing between two and five million tonnes of cement each year to meet soaring demand and needed to start making its own.

"We need more cement," he said.

After decades of civil war, including the Khmer Rouge "Killing Fields" of the 1970s, Cambodia's economy has taken off in the last three years, due mainly to rapid expansion of its tourism and garment industries.

A construction boom fuelled by billions of dollars of foreign investment, much of it South Korean, has helped push annual economic growth to nearly 10 percent.

(Reporting by Dara Rith; Writing by Ek Madra; Editing by Ed Cropley)