By Kong Soriya
Phnom Penh, Bavet City of Svay Rieng province has been attracting investment due to a number of important geographical, infrastructure and government policies.
Bavet City has been incorporated by the government in the 2015-2025 Industry Development Policy, which is one of the reasons that has attracted investment from international investors, especially Chinese investors.
Mr. Andy, vice president of Cambodia Real Estate Association, said that Bavet has been in the same situation as Sihanoukville three years ago, because three years ago Sihanoukville had few investors, but now Sihanoukville has been developed incredibly fast.
Bavet is just like Sihanoukville before, but now the development in Bavet has started with 2 satellite cities and has nearly 10 special economic zones which employ about 50,000 people, he added.
“I believe that Bavet will grow fast and see as potential as the Sihanoukville province and Poipet City,” Mr. Andy said said.
The development of Bavet has been underway as the high speed road project, Phnom Penh-Bavet Expressway, announced by a Chinese company, will be built in the near future.
In a meeting with Samdech Techo Hun Sen, Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Cambodia, who visited China recently, the representative of the China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC) Company said that the company planned to construct highways from Phnom Penh to the Cambodian-Vietnamese border, Bavet and construction of Street 15-51 connecting Koh Kong, Pursat and Battambang.
At the same time, representatives of China Road and Bridge Corporation CRBC also reported to Samdech Prime Minister about the update of their investment projects in Cambodia and plans for implementation in the near future as over the past years many investment companies joint corporations and contributed bridges and roads in Cambodia, for the time being, the company will build the expressway from Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville, which is scheduled to open the construction site in the near future.
Empire World CEO Eric Luu, who has been building a satellite city, covering 1,150 hectares of land in Bavet, said he had studied in geographical areas in Cambodia and finally his company chose Bavet as an investment site for Empire World City project because Bavet will be a central trading hub between Phnom Penh and Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam and the Cambodian government policies put Bavet Citya as a special economic and industrial zone with its Industrial Development Policy.
“These geographical factor is particularly favorable for investment, especially there is the expressway project and the One Belt and One Road project, connecting to this area,” he said, adding, “Therefore, we invested in the OBC project to meet the growing demand for office, residential, casinos and technology centers to help the government control Game Online in Cambodia.”
“So far, we have about 100 partner companies to make sure that the satellite city is functioning and built in time because the government has allowed us only two years to complete the first phase which covers an area of 52 hectares,” Mr. Eric Luu said, adding that the construction of the satellite city will contribute to the development of the Cambodian economy, in particular to help manage online gaming, which is growing in Cambodia.
