Cambodia places its bets on foreign casinos
BEIJING: It’s against the law for Cambodians to gamble. Yet in Sihanoukville, a oncesleepy resort town, three dozen casinos have sprung up in the past two years, Cambodians are betting that an infusion of Chinese-built infrastructure will pay off with jobs and prosperity. So far, what they’ve gotten is an increase in crime, higher housing costs and a little ethnic tension.
The casinos in Sihanoukville, a city named after a former king, caters to thousands of Chinese tourists and workers who have descended on this nub of land on Cambodia’s southern coast. At the Golden Sand Hotel’s casino near Ochheuteal Beach, businessmen from places like Shenyang peel US$100 bills (about 3,300 baht) from thick wads of cash as they suck on Chunghwa cigarettes. Even on weeknights, the place is packed and filled with smoke. Young Cambodian women in short, tight skirts stand behind tables dealing cards and Chinese security guards dressed in black circle the room.
The influx of Chinese — who arrive on the 87 flights per week at a single-runway airport that can’t handle jumbo jets — is tied to China’s Belt and Road Initiative, an ambitious plan to build an estimated $1 trillion worth of infrastructure across Asia and parts of Africa, dwarfing the post-World War II Marshall Plan. In Sihanoukville, projects include a special economic zone, where more than 100 Chinese-owned factories are already operating, and a four-lane toll road to the capital city of Phnom Penh, about 225kms away, which will be built by China Communications Construction Co. In all, Chinese state-owned and private companies are involved in about $4.2 billion of infrastructure projects on Cambodia’s southern coast, including power plants and offshore oil exploration, according to RWR Advisory Group in Washington, which tracks Chinese investment.
All that investment designed to pull Cambodia closely into China’s orbit and open up new areas of investment in tourism, manufacturing and construction, is paying off. A dozen hotel-condo projects aimed at Chinese tourists and secondhome buyers are going up. Two other taxfree economic zones are also being built. And, of course, more casinos are planned, none with Belt and Road financing but all hoping to cash in on the investment flow.
“The scale of these projects is just enormous,” said Andrew Klebanow, a senior partner at Las Vegas consulting firm Global Market Advisors, who called Sihanoukville the world’s fastest-growing gaming jurisdiction in a May report. “I’ve never seen anything like that”.