The shadowy Chinese firms that own chunks of Cambodia - BBC News

Fifteen years after a deal to control a fifth of Cambodia's coastline, work has barely started.

1 day agoShareclose panelShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, BBC/ Benjamin BegleyImage caption, A highway cuts through Cambodia's Botum Sakor national park towards the coast - and the Dara Sakor projectBy Lulu Luo & Jonathan Headin Dara Sokor, CambodiaThe highway runs through the forest like a black ribbon, down to the sea and to what must be one of the world's largest tourism projects.

Fifteen years after it began, there is still not much to see of the Dara Sakor Seashore Resort in southern Cambodia.

It is a grandiose scheme by a Chinese company to build a self-contained tourist city. A Chinese colony, some have called it a venue for "feasting and revelry", according to the company, complete with international airport, deep-sea port, power stations, hospitals, casinos and luxury villas.

The airport is still unfinished. A single casino, with an attached five-star hotel and apartments, sits alone near the sea, fronted by an unmade road, and surrounded by a construction site.

As a tourist business it has barely got started. But it has already had a damaging impact on one of Asia's richest natural environments, and on the thousands of people who live there.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-66851049?at_medium=RSS&at_campaign=KARANGA

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