1 April 2016 | By GCR staff
Ground has been broken on the Thai Boon Roong Twin Tower World Trade Centre, a project to build two 500m-high towers in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh.
The scheme, whose value is reported by sources in the Cambodian media as either $2bn or $3bn, is to be built opposite NagaWorld, the country’s only casino.
It will contain a mix of residential and commercial units. The 133-storey twin towers will include a hotel, serviced apartments and offices, a shopping mall, an exhibition hall, a cinema, restaurants and basement car park. The gross building area is around 1.6 million square metres.
As well as the towers it will have four residential buildings of 59 to 65 storeys, an 11-storey podium structure with three levels of basement, and another three levels of basement under the existing Hun Sen Plaza in front of the Twin Towers.
Tous Saphoeun, dean of architecture at Pannasastra University and a designer of the scheme, told the Khmer Times that it would be finished in three years.
“The presence of the building will change Phnom Penh’s skyline.”
– Architect Tous Saphoeun
The project is to be developed by a joint venture by the Thai Boon Roong Group of Cambodia, and Macau-based property developer Sun Kian Ip Group.
Thai Boon Roong is owned by Teng Boonma, a colourful and controversial figure in Cambodian society, who is frequently referred to as the richest man in the country.
Saphoeun said Thai Boon Roong originally planned to invest about $1bn on the scheme, but after studying the project they increased this to about $2bn. “The presence of the building will change Phnom Penh’s skyline,” he added.
Pa Socheatvong, the governor of Phnom Penh, said during the official launch that the towers would be the biggest ever built in Cambodia, and would inject billions of dollars into the country’s property sector.
He said: “This building project is not only situated in a good location, but it will promote Phnom Penh’s skyline to the next level and attract more investors to the country.”
The construction manager for the scheme is to be Hsin Chong Construction Group of Hong Kong. The company was formally appointed on 10 March.
The scheme is part of a surge in construction spending in Cambodia. Investment in the sector reached an all-time high last year at almost $3.5bn. This a 40% increase on 2014, and represents 19% of the country’s total GDP, according to data from the Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction.
About 700 buildings, ranging from five to 55 floors, were built last year across the country, with most going up in the capital, Kandal, Siem Reap, Sihanoukville and Battambang provinces.
Image: A rendering of the Thai Boon Roong Commercial Centre (Thai Boon Roong)
10 comments:
Messy power lines and cables along the roads, horrible traffic jams, flash floods when it rains…they need to be fixed first before starting the dream of building the tallest towers in South-east Asia.
Street-view:
Power lines and cables are overhead in a normal traffic near Deum Kor market.
https://www.google.com/maps/@11.5546482,104.9018045,3a,75y,7.85h,94.36t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1s2pTrpv-p9RXedW_Q-nMAeQ!2e0!7i13312!8i6656?hl=en
I don't give a fuck about shit skyscraper.Who knows what will happen to them after they finished .The white elephant.
I am not a supporter of CPP. I an CNRP but we must support any progresses that Cambodia was able to accomplish even if it initiated by CPP. If you care about Cambodia you must not let your party affiliate affect your feeling toward Khmer progresses. We had been to hell and came back to life but still a lots of works to be done such as human rights, land grabbing, territories stolen by thieves neighbors, corruptions. Khmer had been look down and spite on by Siam, Youn, Chinese and even a small Laotian. We must cooperated with CPP when it's come to national interests. Khmer must learn not hate and jealous of each others to give others to look down and take advantages of us. Please be respect to each others we are all Cambodian even if we came from different ethnics such as Khmer, Chinese, Vietnamese, Thai, Lew, others minority. Peace and progress to Cambodia. Proud of progress. Happy New Year. May Khmer have peace, progress, united, prosperity.
Everybody wants progress, but progress in the name of what?
The forest is gone, the rich and powerful grab the lands of the poor who have no choice but to leave the country to find work. Cambodia is a land of agriculture but everyday it has to import vegetables contaminated with chemicals from the neighboring countries and there are more problems…
Before you want your country skyscrapers to surpass the richer countries in the region you have to bring the standard of living of your countrymen to be at par with them. So investing in building factories to create jobs and building canals to bring water to the farmers are more important than skyscrapers which make the country look good but still beg for loan and aid.
This is not about political party, it is about doing the right investment that makes sense to bring jobs and prosperity to the whole country but not just to the small fraction of people at the top.
To my Khmer brother poster 3 April 2016 at 07:37. I am completely agreed that our forest had been destroyed. CPP did a very terrible jobs of managing our country natural resources but Cambodia had been brought back to stone age because of our leaders ignorant and revenges of each others (ex. civil wars & Vietnam invasion ) Cambodia had made tremendous progress but at the expanse of her natural and human tolls. You can't have both ways as a poor and completely destroyed country thanks to Vietnam war, civil wars because of King father, Pol Pot, Lon Nol, Hun Sen and others. Well Hun Sen was not fully blamed he just a small fish during those civil years. Matter of facts most SE Asia countries that rich went the same ways as Cambodia today. Their forest had almost completely gone. Cambodia was one of the few country that still have some forest left to be talking about.
AS far as skyscrapers Cambodia can use this kind of projects and others. Did you know that China built thousands of scrapers that mostly emptied but CHINA was able to project images as prosperity and investments opportunities to the world and the result CHINA now world #1 economic superpower not America. Cambodia as a small nation can only hope a fraction of investments.
Yes our Cambodia is an agriculture country but the future is a hybrid of industrial & agriculture economy. Since as global warming coming we needed to adept not dependent on agriculture.
AS far as Khmer buying agriculture from Vietnam & Thailand. Khmer grown lazy. I had visited y family and their friends houses in Phnom Penh and most of the land are emptied not even growing lettuce or lemon grass for daily use and the ponds are right next to their backyard.
13:07
Are YOU a real Khmer not a Yuon Khmer ?
For you to come out and flagrantly say Khmers are lazy; they don't even grow lettuce in their own backyard, your statement is nothing but a cultural insult !
Instead of your insults, what have YOU done to help if any ?
Dear All,
It does not matter how tall and picturesque those skyscrapers or how beautiful other country
infrastructures are, if the country itself has lost its own destiny.
Analogically, it is like a tenant makes improvements to the landlord's property.
If change is not made and not made in time, the benificiary is no either than
the Landlord Hanoi.
4 April 2016 at 03:37, I am not Youn. What I stated is what I had observed. I don't meant to state that whole Khmer are lazy but just the families and their friends that I had seen. As in the U.S most a lots of Khmer settled for less than Youn or even Lew. Many Khmer here in U.S didn't even finish any higher education even if Uncle Sam provided them with financial helps for educations. If Khmer are not growing lazy. Why did we needed to buy such as a simple plant lemon grass from Viets or Thai ? We can grow in any small land next to our house. You can even grow in a pot on any floor of a building. Me and many Khmer in America had sent a lots of money to our families in Cambodia but yet they didn't save or use the money to start a business. We can't keep on denying that many Khmer had grown lazy. Our neighbors Viets, Thai, Laotian are hard at works with little they got.
Even Khmers who lived along the Vietnam and Thai border leases their land to our neighbors and this a very grave dangerous to Cambodia territories integrity in the near future. Why didn't those Khmer who had land at the border not use their land to farm instead renting to hungry thief neighbors and waiting for a small pay rents? Not even worth it. We really needed to find a way to motivate our peoples to work hard and change our attitudes quickly.
We Cambodian must stop painting each others as Youn or Siam when we saw things on a different perspectives. STOP BLAMING OTHERS SUCH AS OUR NEIGHBORS OF OUR FAULTS AND PROBLEMS. We needed to correct ourselves. I'm sorry if I hurt your feeling and others Khmers but this what I had observed. Just a one Khmer brother opinions. I'm just a small fish who worked hard as Aircraft Mechanic in American to provide for my family. Again my apology if I gave you the wrong impressions. Happy Khmer New Year.
To Poster 04:58
Dear Khmer Brother,
First, I thank you for responding civilly .
The social and political problems you had observed and hereby described are only the
symptoms of a failed national leadership or the lack thereof.
Consequently some poor and desperate Khmers do desperate things to just survive.
On the other hand, for example in the US, there are Khmer engineers, accountants, doctors and professors, some of whom are prominent research scientists at MIT and Caltech.
The plausible solution is for us Khmers to regain back our country 's leadership and denounce the Viet expansionism on our Motherland .
Expectedly, the elusive change will be materialized after the 2018 election when the CNRP wins.
Suor Sdei Chnam Thmei !!!
Hi Suor Sdei Chnam Thmei,
Although I agree with you there are some small amount of Khmer who got high education in America & EU but in my area I had observed majority of young Khmer only interests in playing nice car & pleasures. Many other Asian American youths would enjoy pleasures in life but at the same time they never neglected educations. If you go to University campus mostly Chinese, Vietnamese, Laotian, Hmong and very few Khmer. I'm saying the amount of great opportunities American government gave us we should be really taken advantage of.
I can't speak for other Khmer families but just in my family alone all of my nephews were only managed to finish high school. Only 1 out of 6 nieces went to college. I had 4 brothers and only 2 of us got some education and 3 of my sisters are not even gone to high school. So you can see the ratio of Khmer got educations compared to Khmer not educated in America are very low. This just my family alone. I had seen other Khmer families that we associated with are very similar to our family. Many of our Khmer male youths are in a gang affiliated. Thank god Khmer females seem to be more interests in school. Also many of high intellectuals Khmer would not return back to help Cambodia because of the unfavorable atmosphere in Cambodia.
As for our brothers & sisters in Cambodia they are in a tough spots because Khmer government are still controlled behind the scene by Hanoi & Beijing. I truly believed CNRP had won election in 2013 but was taken away from us because of bias NEC and the self-interests China, ASEAN, western countries are not willing to do what is it right. May be 2018 different than other elections because the NEC now have half of it's members from our party and 1 neutral. I would still be cautious because of CPP/Youn had many tricks left. CPP managed to trump up charges on Sam Rainsy kept him out of Cambodia and now the CPP ACU trump up another stupid corruption thing on Kem Sokha because of affair. They will not give up their powers without all these dirty, unjust fight on us. I am worry that the CPP/Youn loose general election in 2018. Will they transfers power to CNRP like in Burma ? The situation in Burma is different than Cambodia. Burma was ruled by Burma owned military junta while Cambodia was and still ruled by foreign government. Happy New Year and peace and independent to our motherland.
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