how to make money in Cambodia

Seurng Vuthy wrote:

Hi dear, today I would share with you my view concern on establishing businesses in Cambodia. if you are from a western country, you might spend much money on doing business in Cambodia, if you don't spend a year living in Cambodia.The reason why I said that because if you come directly to run business, you will first spend much money because you will be cheated especially the ones work in the related file. Furthermore, there is a political issued just recently happened because CNRP was resolved. There are a lot of Chines are coming to Cambodia to run the business, the accommodation, apartments, hotel are expensive if we want to rent. This issue's recently happened in Kompong Som, where there is a beautiful place for tourists especially the beach. Nevertheless, some places such as the beach, apartment, hotel and the most important is land around Kompong som is belong to chines company. Not only the people are from the western country are especially Cambodian are very hard to live now because everything is expensive, most of the shops are belong to the chines. There are a lot of workers are forced to move the location to the another by the government. Therefore, most of them decided to be home.

Hello Seurng Vuthy.

Allow me to strongly disagree with your negative report re Kampong som [Sihanoukville]. There is an influx of Chinese workers, as casinos and related hotels/restaurants bring in their own staff, due to not enough local people speaking chinese. Chinese tourists are the largest group of international tourists and it is growing very fast, hence the building of new casinos, new hotels, new restaurants and shops.
Any Khmer landowner that has "lost" his shop or whatever, has received a generous amount of money so that those landlords are very happy now. If shops were on lease on land that has been sold they lost their lease. That is the risk if you lease, every businessman knows that.

But this rise of Chinese casinos, hotels and catering is mainly in a certain part of the city, with the adjacent Ocheuteal beach being reconstructed, the beach bars are demolished and new construction takes place, but it looks indeed that it is catering to Chinese tourists. Logical to have it all concentrated in one place.

Fact is that Kampong som is much larger than the casino area. It also has many more beaches that are untouched and functioning as before. Also the city center with two markets, many shops and supermarkets is unchanged.

Kampong som [Sihanoukville] is a booming city and in 10 years it will not look like it was 10 years ago. The whole city exists for not more than 60 years, from a fisher village to a major important city, with the only deep sea port of Cambodia, with the largest container terminal, with the largest special economic zone of Cambodia, with an international airport that apart from charters, has direct flights to China, Malaysia, Vietnam, plus domestic flights. It will be expanded, to serve the growing numbers of tourists but also businesses.

I live in Sihanoukville and I see the Chinese influence growing, but it is part of the expansion of a booming city, nothing to worry about and no reason to not live here or have your business here.
Lots of new jobs were and are created, so much that workers had to be hired from the province.
A Chinese company will construct a new highway between Sihanoukville and Phnom Penh. The railway connection is mainly used by freight trains, with containers, coal, oil, fuel, rocks and more.
These are signs of progress, and not everyone is happy with it, but it is irreversible.

Cheers

Joe
Cambodia expat-advisor
Expat.com team