More Thai Investors Flock to Cambodia

BANGKOK — There has been a marked increase in the number of Thai  investors coming to do business in Cambodia, said a Phnom Penh Post  report.

According to Thai Embassy commercial affairs counselor in Phnom Penh,  Boonnam Kulrakampusiri, between 15 and 20 new Thai investors have  been visiting his office every month to express their desire of doing  business in Cambodia.  Boonnam said that about 400 to 500 Thais were  now running businesses in Cambodia, both big and small.

They come to Cambodia to pursue all kinds of business, including  hotels, restaurants and cement plants. He said that when he first  arrived in Cambodia in January 2004, roughly 200 Thais had been doing  business in the country.

Boonnam told the Phnom Penh Post that last year, the total Thai  investment in Cambodia was about 3.8 billion baht (100 million U.S.  dollars), including unregistered businesses, and he estimated that  this year there would be more because big investors were coming. In  mid-July TCC Group, one of the biggest companies in Thailand, entered  into a joint venture with Mong Reththy to establish more than 1.9  billion baht (50 million dollars) sugar factory and byproducts  industry in Keo Phos village on the island of Koh Kong.

Cambodia imports more than two billion baht (70 million dollars)  worth of white sugar each year, according to Reththy. In 2005, it  imported about 250,000 tonnes of sugar from Thailand.

Boonnam said Cambodia had three major fields to invest in,  agricultural products, agro-industry like Charoen's sugar factory,  and tourism. Charoen also owns a hotel in Siem Reap, according to the  Phnom Penh Post. (The Nation, Jul. 28, 2006)