Cambodia transformed to the tune of billions
Cambodian conglomerate Royal Group is raising over £1 billion from private investors, together with Hong Kong-based Millennium Group, to develop Koh Rong, an island off Sihanoukville
After decades of war and genocide overseen by the Khmer Rouge regime, Cambodia is playing catch-up to other south-east Asian tourism hotspots in countries such as Thailand and Malaysia.
In the 15 years since Cambodia's return to multiparty democracy, the country has made an impressive economic recovery and tourism has grown almost tenfold to become the second most important sector after textiles.
The number of visitors to Cambodia hit two million for the first time last year, but of those only 122,000 visited the country's beaches.
Now, property developers are trying to Change that by investing billions of dollars in transforming Cambodia's coastline into one of Asia's leading holiday destinations.
Such investments are designed to help diversify a Cambodian tourism industry that is heavily reliant on the 12th Century temple Cambodia/angkor_wat.html">Angkor Wat and the country's other inland historic treasures.
Mark Hanna, Chief Financial Officer of Royal Group, said, "The amount planned by Royal will only cover the initial stages of the development.
"We are talking about an island that is the same size as Hong Kong, where we want to add things such as an airport, so ultimately we are certainly looking at several billions," he said.
Meanwhile, MPDI, one of Cambodia's leading construction companies, is working on another £1 billion+ project, with unnamed US, Japanese and Middle Eastern investors.
The project aims to triple the size of Kep, a neglected former French colonial resort, and involves reclaiming land along a 6km stretch of coastline and building luxury towers and bungalows to house 10,000 families.