Cambodia

Cambodia

Postby LenaHuat » Tue Jul 08, 2008 7:38 pm

I think Cambodia has immense potential both in terms of minerals and farmland.
2day's news abt SPC :

SINGAPORE - Singapore Petroleum Company and its partners began drilling an exploration well off Cambodia on Tuesday, the company said in a statement.


The well is the first in Block B, about 160km southwest of Sihanoukville, the company said.

Drilling to test the hydrocarbon potential is expected to take about 15 days, it said.

Singapore Petroleum, through a wholly-owned subsidiary, has a one-third interest in the block.

Cambodia expects to begin oil production in 2011, a senior energy official said in March.

Oil was discovered in 2005 by the US energy giant Chevron, the most active of several firms exploring in six blocks off the country's coast.

Prime Minister Hun Sen warned late last year that it was 'highly premature' to estimate how much oil Cambodia might hold in undersea reserves. -- AFP
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Re: Cambodia

Postby LenaHuat » Tue Jul 08, 2008 7:42 pm

Tot I will repeat this posting from "Farmland" here so that I've a trail on Cambodia:
LenaHuat wrote:
Meanwhile, in the offices of hedge funds, pension funds and investment firms, a feverish search for the next big thing is already underway. Conservative investments -- concrete things that cannot go up in smoke as easily as a futures contract on the Chicago and New York exchanges -- are suddenly back in vogue.

In keeping with the new trend, hedge funds and investment banks have started buying up farms worldwide. Morgan Stanley, for example, already owns several thousands of hectares of agricultural land in Ukraine. An agriculture fund operated by Blackrock, a New York investment group, acquired more than 1,100 hectares (2,717 acres) in Britain's Norfolk County. Others are combing the world, from Russia to South America, for investment opportunities. In Argentina, prices for the most productive fields have increased by 80 percent in recent years.

The British hedge fund Emergent Asset Management is currently collecting €1 billion ($1.55 billion) to buy up African farmland south of the Sahara Desert.

"Hedge fund managers may not be good farmers," says Paul Christie, Emergent's marketing chief, "but with the right partners they can be good farm managers."


Juz TOL, will Cambodia (large land mass with only 5 million compared to Vietnam with 72 million) be in Wilmar's radar soon?? Temasek's radar?? Problem is maybe the uncleared landmines in the Northern part of the country.

What abt downunder NZ??
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Re: Cambodia

Postby millionairemind » Tue Jul 08, 2008 7:52 pm

Lena,

Do you have anything in mind for investors like us sitting in Singapore to profit from it? Always looking forward to hearing your comments ;)

Cheers,
mm
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Re: Cambodia

Postby LenaHuat » Tue Jul 08, 2008 7:57 pm

MM, I think Wilmar. Trust Kuok to have some good connections there. Secondly, CapitaLand.
Hun Sen is doing a good job. His eldest son seems to be a very decent man, held in high esteem by many Cambodians. He has both a Singapore and US education. Looks like Cambodia is going to have political stability............if they look to the Lee family for inspiration :D
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Re: Cambodia

Postby LenaHuat » Tue Jul 08, 2008 7:58 pm

Forgot to add : SPC lah. :D
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Re: Cambodia

Postby millionairemind » Tue Jul 08, 2008 8:15 pm

Tks Lena... will take a look at them.

Cheers,
mm
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Re: Cambodia

Postby winston » Thu Jul 10, 2008 8:54 pm

Royal Group Seeks $2 Billion for Cambodian Resort (Update1)
By Netty Ismail

July 10 (Bloomberg) -- Royal Group, which owns Cambodia's biggest mobile-phone operator, plans to raise as much as $2 billion with Hong Kong-based Millennium Group to build resorts, casinos and an airport on an island off the coast of Cambodia.

Royal Group and the Millennium real-estate investment firm are seeking investors and partners for resorts, apartments, casinos, golf courses, polo fields and an airport on Koh Rong island, according to a financing investment document obtained by Bloomberg News. The island is the largest of 22 off the coast of the southern port city and beach resort town of Sihanoukville.

``This is a place that people haven't discovered yet,''
said Royal Group Chairman Kith Meng in an interview in Phnom Penh. ``It's like the Maldives,'' an island country in the Indian Ocean southwest of Sri Lanka, he said.

Cambodia, the second-poorest of 10 Southeast Asian nations, is relying on tourism to fuel economic growth as garment exports slow. The country attracted about $400 million of tourism- related investments in the first half of 2008, mostly for resorts, Commerce Minister Cham Prasidh said. Visitors to Cambodia exceeded 2 million for the first time last year, up from 118,183 in 1993 when Cambodia emerged from a two-decade civil war.

``Our dream is to transform our costal line into the next Riviera of Asia,'' Cham Prasidh said in a July 4 interview. ``There'll be plenty of resorts appearing on the islands and all along the coast of Cambodia. There will be billions of dollars of investment in that sector this year and next year.''

Angkor Wat

The companies will raise funds from investors in London and the Middle East, and it will take 10 years to 15 years to develop the island, said Kith Meng on July 4.

Cambodia wants to develop tourism beyond the key destination of Angkor Wat, known for its ancient temples. The island project may face competition with beach resorts also being developed in Vietnam and Thailand.

``The tourism industry is overwhelmingly concentrated on Angkor Wat because of the unique attraction you can't find elsewhere in the world,'' said Agost Benard, associate director at Standard & Poor's in Singapore. ``As far as developing a beach resort, you'll be competing with a lot of countries because it's a generic product.''

Royal Group and Millennium are raising funds as record oil prices prompt airlines to cut flights. Cathay Pacific Airways Ltd., Hong Kong's largest airline, said July 2 that earnings would be ``disappointing'' because of record fuel costs.

``I don't know if the current oil prices will affect air travel and if it's going to be a booming sector in the near term,'' Benard said.

Turquoise Waters


The companies are trying to get resort and hotel operators, including Singapore-based Banyan Tree Holdings Ltd., to participate in the project, Kith Meng said.

Royal Group and Millennium plan to develop the 76 square- kilometer (29 square-mile) Koh Rong island, now inhabited by fishermen, into a ``luxury resort destination,'' according to the document. The island has 28 white sand beaches, including the 6.1 kilometer Snowdrift Beach, surrounded by shallow turquoise waters.

``The world isn't even aware it exists,'' said Douglas Clayton, founder of Leopard Capital, who has lived in Asia, including Cambodia, for about 21 years. ``In a decade, it might have an international airport cluttered with private jets and marinas full of mega-yachts; visit it today and you'll be the only one on the beach.''

Kith Meng, who was educated in Australia, declined to say how much Royal Group is paying the government for a 99-year lease to the island.

Royal Group also is planning to build a resort in Siem Reap, near the temples of Angkor Wat, with India's Oberoi Group.
Royal Group already has a telecommunications venture, MobiTel, with Luxembourg-based Millicom International Cellular SA, and another partnership in Cambodia with Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd., Australia's third-largest bank, called ANZ Royal Bank.
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Re: Cambodia

Postby winston » Thu Jul 24, 2008 3:13 pm

Cambodia to Open Bourse in 2009; Urges Corporate Transparency
By Netty Ismail and Yoolim Lee

July 24 (Bloomberg) -- Cambodia plans to open its first stock exchange and start a corporate bond market in the fourth quarter of 2009 in a bid to attract foreign funds to Southeast Asia's second-poorest nation, a government official said.

Six to 10 companies, with a combined market value of $200 million to $400 million, including Sokimex Group, the country's biggest petroleum company, and Acleda Bank Plc, its largest bank, will likely be listed on the exchange within a year of it being set up, Kao Thach, head of the Ministry of Economy and Finance's financial market division, said late yesterday.

Cambodia, which abolished money under the Khmer Rouge three decades ago, is seeking to lure foreign funds as economic growth slows after peaking at 13.5 percent in 2005. The government will need to improve the legal system and urge Cambodian companies to open their accounting records to investor scrutiny, said Agost Benard, who covers the country for Standard & Poor's.

``Given all the uncertainties and lack of transparency, at least initially, it will probably be the local people who are willing to take the punt,'' said Benard, associate director at the rating company in Singapore. ``International investors who expect higher standards of disclosure and transparency will take a wait-and-see attitude.''

The government last year asked more than 400 companies, most of which are family businesses, to get their financial statements audited to improve transparency, Thach, 34, said in an interview in Phnom Penh.

Local Rules

``Cambodia has been effectively cut off from the rest of the developed world for the past three decades, so a lot of business has been done based on unwritten local rules,'' said Marvin Yeo, co-founder of Frontier Investment & Development Partners in Phnom Penh.

Frontier Investment, a private-equity fund, is raising $250 million to put in the second-poorest of 10 Southeast Asian nations, and will cash out of some of its planned investments through listings on the exchange, Yeo said.

The listing requirements in Cambodia will likely be modeled on the Kosdaq, South Korea's second stock market that was set up 12 years ago for small- and medium-sized firms as well as venture start-ups, Thach said.

Companies seeking a Kosdaq listing need to be in business for at least three years with minimum paid-in capital of 500 million won ($495,417) and debt-to-equity ratio of less than 150 percent of the industry mean. Venture capital firms have less stringent requirements under the South Korean government's program to prop up smaller technology companies.

Raising Capital

South Korea's exchange is helping Cambodia set up its bourse. The Cambodian government, which will likely own at least 51 percent of the planned venture, and the operator of the Seoul-based bourse, Korea Exchange Inc., will begin discussions next month to decide on their shareholdings, Thach said.

The Cambodia Securities and Exchange Commission will likely be set up as early as September, Thach said.

``They're nowhere near getting the rules together, the criteria for listing, transparency, proper accounting,'' said John Brinsden, vice chairman of Acleda Bank, the largest Cambodian bank with 209 branches in 24 provinces.

Acleda Bank will ``need a lot of capital over the next few years'' as it opens more offices in Cambodia and neighboring countries including Laos, Brinsden said in Phnom Penh.

Sokimex, which has monopoly rights to ticket sales at the Angkor Wat ancient temple ruins in Siem Reap, plans to expand its hotel and resorts business, Chief Executive Officer Sok Kong said on the company's Web site.

Transparency Concerns

Other Cambodian companies considering initial public offerings include Canadia Bank Plc, Union Commercial Bank Plc and Mong Rithy Group, which has palm oil plantations in Sihanoukville, Thach said.

Royal Group, which owns the country's biggest mobile-phone operator and has a partnership with Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd. in Cambodia, will consider a listing ``in the future,'' Chairman Kith Meng said in an interview in Phnom Penh.

Companies can sell shares or bonds in Cambodia's currency, the riel, or the dollar, which will mitigate any foreign exchange risk for international investors, Thach said.

Still, ``the biggest concern would be the credibility of the companies or their reporting standards,'' said Frontier Investment's Yeo. Transparency International, a private monitoring agency based in Berlin, ranked Cambodia 162nd of 179 countries in its annual report on perceptions of corruption last year.
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Re: Cambodia

Postby boonchuan » Sun Nov 01, 2009 6:57 pm

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Re: Cambodia

Postby Musicwhiz » Sun Nov 01, 2009 7:10 pm

Yes, Cambodia's farms are thriving - I've been to the countryside area when travelling between Phnom Penh and Battambang; it's very rural and rustic and reminds you of olden Singapore.

Cambodia probably cannot set up their Stock Exchange by this year because of the financial crisis. From what I've heard, real estate prices are still down about 40% and many factories had to close down because of the crisis. So it may take a while for the country to recover.
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