Derelict casino buildings litter Sihanoukville. The area has more than 1,000 high-rise buildings of which 400 have been left unfinished and abandoned, mostly during the Covid lockdowns, whilst a crackdown on illegal gambling has also led to many projects being suspended.


International tourism revenue was worth around 10 per cent of GDP (2019) and one in 10 Cambodians worked in tourism. Te sector is second only to the garment industry.


Tere are around 1,000 hotels providing 44,500 rooms across Cambodia plus 2,750 guest houses and 3,350 restaurants. Chinese visitors account for the highest number of visitors (30 per cent) followed by tourists from the US, Korea, Japan and France.


Te government initiated various recovery responses for the tourism industry during the pandemic, including industry tax and fee exemptions and support for local businesses. Te Roadmap for Recovery of Cambodia was also launched, which aims to strengthen the tourism sector and promote it as a safe destination post-pandemic.


by Malaysian-Chinese businessman Chen Lip Keong and publicly listed on the Hong Kong stock exchange since 2006.


Although only foreigners can gamble in Cambodian casinos, Hun Sen claimed the $1bn foreign investment funnelled into Sihanoukville meant everyone would benefit.


But that was before Hun Sen banned online gambling in 2019 and then Covid hit the following year.


Online gambling was the source of a quarter of the taxes the country saw from the casinos. Te move was seen as political but saw the casino industry fizzle within just a few months and almost die, with half of the casinos in Sihanoukville closed down whilst some 8,000 Cambodian workers were laid off and there was


Gambling and foreign backed casinos are rife in Cambodia. The sector exploded in 2017 when Chinese backed casinos took over the once sleepy beach town of Sihanoukville and saw the arrival of Chinese tourists eager to gamble abroad. The city was transformed into a gambling mecca by the influx of casinos and the development of hotels, clubs and restaurants and it was said 90 per cent of businesses in the city were owned by Chinese.


RAPID GROWTH OF GAMBLING


Gambling and foreign backed casinos are rife in Cambodia. Te sector exploded in 2017 when Chinese-backed casinos took over the once sleepy beach town of Sihanoukville and saw the arrival of Chinese tourists eager to gamble abroad. Te city was transformed into a gambling mecca by the influx of casinos and the development of hotels, clubs and restaurants and it was said 90 per cent of businesses in the city were owned by Chinese citizens.


Chinese visitors also boosted profits at Naga World, which since 2000 has enjoyed the exclusive licence to run casinos within a 200km radius of Phnom Penh. Te company is owned


a mass exodus as some 200,000 Chinese nationals who left the country.


Tis coupled with the arrival of the pandemic saw a devastating effect on foreign tourism and domestic revenue in the gambling industry which collapsed by 90 per cent.


As a knock-on effect, revenue losses have caused huge labour condition problems such as insufficient wages and poor working conditions. Land prices in Sihanoukville have also collapsed by around 25 to 30 per cent and partially built resorts and projects have been left abandoned.


Fast forward to this year and Cambodia had been waiting for Beijing to end its ‘zero Covid’


WIRE / PULSE / INSIGHT / REPORTS P53


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68  |  Page 69  |  Page 70  |  Page 71  |  Page 72  |  Page 73  |  Page 74  |  Page 75  |  Page 76  |  Page 77  |  Page 78  |  Page 79  |  Page 80  |  Page 81  |  Page 82  |  Page 83  |  Page 84  |  Page 85  |  Page 86  |  Page 87  |  Page 88  |  Page 89  |  Page 90  |  Page 91  |  Page 92  |  Page 93  |  Page 94  |  Page 95  |  Page 96  |  Page 97  |  Page 98  |  Page 99  |  Page 100  |  Page 101  |  Page 102  |  Page 103  |  Page 104  |  Page 105  |  Page 106  |  Page 107  |  Page 108  |  Page 109  |  Page 110  |  Page 111  |  Page 112  |  Page 113  |  Page 114  |  Page 115  |  Page 116  |  Page 117  |  Page 118  |  Page 119  |  Page 120  |  Page 121  |  Page 122  |  Page 123  |  Page 124  |  Page 125  |  Page 126  |  Page 127  |  Page 128  |  Page 129  |  Page 130  |  Page 131  |  Page 132  |  Page 133  |  Page 134