Cambodia

Brief About Cambodia:

Cambodia, with its capital city Phnom Penh, is a SouthEast Asian country neighboring Thailand and Vietnam. The Government functions as a democracy with its official language Khmer although English is the widely spoken language among the business and investor community. The country encompasses a Land Area of 181.035 sq. kms, a population of 14.805 million and density of 81.8 per sq. km according to the latest statistics released for the year 2009. The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was recorded at USD 28.461 billion with per capita of USD 2,100. The US Dollar is the de-facto legal tender and the widely used currency for all transactions.

Business Opportunities in Cambodia:

1. Agro Projects

Cambodia would be one of the best investment destinations for any agro projects namely rubber plantation, rice, sugar processing, ethanol , Soya bean, corn, dairy development etc., due to following advantages :

• Availability of large size lands up to 10,000 hectares as a ‘block’ for a single Registered Company and for a specified project granted by government as “Economic Land Concession” . This acts as an incentive for potential investors..
• Attractive tax incentives namely duty free import of capital goods, corporate tax holiday and concessional corporate tax.
• Exports from Cambodia enjoys duty free / concessional import duty at the point of origin and attracts a higher tariff in the EU under the EBA clause (Everything but Arms).
• Fertile soil and plenty of water resources for irrigation.
• Water navigation as a means of transportation. { Container terminal at Phnom Penh port facilitates shipment of goods to any destination via Saigon port in Vietnam. Vietnam govt grants easy transit facility}

2. Real Estate

Real estate is one more potential area of business in Cambodia due to the following reasons:

• Growing foreign investment creating opportunities for the Cambodians to improve living standards.
• Long term stay of foreign nationals as a large number of them work under the UN umbrella and also presence of large number of NGOs.
• No big player’s presence so far in the real estate investment.
• A stable government and introduction of many reforms in the economic areas.
• Availability of cheap and skilled labour.
• Demand for sea side resorts along the Sihanoukville coastline as Thailand is saturated and also due to the present unrest there.

3. Oil and Natural Gas Exploration

Both Off-shore and On-shore Oil and Natural gas exploration is another area of business potentiality.

4. Medical Tourism and Hospitality:

Setting up of good multi super-specialty hospitals offers a tremendous opportunity as the neighboring Thailand is saturated in this field. Due to the present political turmoil in Thailand, Cambodia can definitely take advantage.

5. Huge Hydro-electric power generation:

This is another area where the government supports investors. Presently the govt with the help of Multi-lateral Institutions is engaged in the building of transmission lines across the country and by 2012 Cambodia expects to be connected to the ASEAN Grid and the demand from richer ASEAN countries will increase manifold.

FDI Policy in Cambodia

Cambodia welcomes foreign investment in all sectors. There is no disparity between local investment and foreign investment. The Cambodian Government also offers the following kind of attractive incentives for the investment projects:

• Large size of land for agro projects as economic land concession.
• 0% import duty for capital goods.
• Tax holiday / confessional tax on the corporate tax.