Increase in Chinese tourism transforms Cambodian coastal city

Описание: (14 Jan 2018) LEADIN
A huge increase in Chinese investment and tourists into Sihanoukville is transforming the once sleepy Cambodian coastal city.
The local economy is growing fast but at the same time many small business owners say they are being hurt by a combination of skyrocketing rents and vanishing Western tourists.
STORYLINE
Sihanoukville - a city of 250,000 people - was carved out of the jungle in the 1960s and named after the former King Norodom Sihanouk.
Home to Cambodia's only deep-water port, it was once a playground for the country's rich and famous before falling on hard times during and after the Khmer Rouge regime in the 1970s and 80s.
Later in the 1990s it was known as a somewhat seedy destination for backpackers seeking sun, sea, sand - and sex.
More recently however a flood of Chinese investors has begun to alter the landscape once again, building hotels, casinos and thousands of apartments on the city's once-sleepy streets.
China is also planning a new four-lane highway from Sihanoukville to Phnom Penh and they are expanding the shipping port and the airport.
Analysts say Chinese investors are attracted by the tightening political relationship between China and Cambodia, made stronger by Hun Sen's many trips to Beijing and Chinese President Xi's visit to Phnom Penh in October 2016.
Chinese investment in Cambodia from 2012-16 was more than 4 billion US Dollars - more than 30 times that from the United States over the same period.
Political commentator Ou Virak says that China is investing heavily in Cambodia as a part of a wider strategy of increasing Chinese influence over the whole Southeast Asia region.
"It's pretty obvious that China wants to have much much more influence in ASEAN as a whole, but the region more importantly… over the whole region," he says. "The best way for them to do it is through a smaller country where they can actually spend less and have the greatest amount of influence."
Estimates of the number of Chinese now resident in Sihanoukville run from the thousands to the tens of thousands, but no official figures have been released.
According to provincial tourism statistics the number of Chinese tourists has grown by 170 percent in the first nine months of 2017, reaching 87,900.
But despite the Chinese influx, not everybody is happy.
Land prices and rents in many areas have spiked threefold in one year - a bonanza for landowners but a disaster for renters which includes most local small business owners.
Many local people also complain that the Chinese do not spend their money in Cambodian shops and restaurants, preferring instead to patronise Chinese owned businesses.
So Sopheap is the owner of the Happy Pizza restaurant in Sihanoukville.
"When the Chinese first came here we thought it was great," he says. "They were constructing a lot of new buildings and there was a lot of development going on. Now we are having a lot of difficulties, especially businesses owners who are renting."
He adds that rent has gone up along with other expenses.
Many Chinese are drawn to Sihanoukville to gamble - there are now 24 legally registered casinos in the city, up from 15 at the end of 2015, the vast majority of which are owned and operated by Chinese investors.
But whether or not China succeeds in creating what has been dubbed the 'New Macau', they will in any case gain something much more valuable, says political commentator Ou Virak.
"Regardless whether it's going to work or not, for the Chinese they will get what they want which is a buy-in from the Cambodian government and possible the business community here," he says.

Find out more about AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/HowWeWork
Twitter:   / ap_archive  
Facebook:   / aparchives   ​​
Instagram:   / apnews  


You can license this story through AP Archive: http://www.aparchive.com/metadata/you...