Can the new construction law work out the kinks in the sector?

• Published date: 20 November 2020
• Publication title: The Phnom Penh Post

For over a decade, billions of dollars have poured into the construction and real estate sectors, which until last year was not regulated. A year later, the law has yet to take effect, mired by jurisdiction overlaps, slow-to-enact supporting regulations, and apathy A child , no more than three-years-old, sits playing in dirt oblivious to his parents who are working in the background of a triple-storey residential development construction site, off Samdach Hun Sen Boulevard a stretch more popularly known as the 60-metre road.

Formerly Boeung Tumpun a vast vegetative freshwater lake which has mostly been filled in, it is one of the newest development strips in south Phnom Penh, branded as a chic satellite city with million-dollar homes and shopping malls. At night, most of the workers retire to the bowels of the unfinished houses or makeshift tents, having their baths with water supplied in pipes, squatting down while washing their clothes.

It is time to rest after nearly 10 hours of work, and for small conversations under the stars while children play as dusk falls before the breezy night lulls them to sleep. The menial workers come from different parts of the country, often by uprooting their families who find assurance in daily or weekly wages versus the unpredictability of rice farming.

Despite the lack of safety and hard labour, scores of rural Cambodians have ditched traditional farming to serve in the booming construction sector which saw investments double to $11.4 billion in 2019 from $5.3 billion in 2018. It is one of four economic pillars that has supported gross domestic product (GDP) growth for 10 years. Last year, it was the largest GDP growth driver at 35.7 per cent, employing a total workforce of 200,000. Just before the coronavirus pandemic blighted the economy, the sector recorded a 47 per cent increase in total investments at $2 billion in the first two months of this year.

The sum represents 728 construction permits up 28 per cent from a year ago which cover 4.2 million sqm.

By June 30, 2020, $3.8 billion worth of construction projects were approved, climbing 13.3 per cent year-on-year, which in time should help the country get back on its feet. In recent years, more than 50 per cent of foreign direct investment to the construction and real estate sector involved investors from the greater China region, including Hong Kong and Taiwan, said the World Bank in May.

Of that, some 500 buildings are taller than five storeys, said Chiv Siv Pheng, director of the Construction Technical Research Department of the Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction (MLMUPC). "Ten years ago, there were no high-rise buildings.

Now they are everywhere," he said with pride. Long-drawn and time consuming But all this construction haste and pursuit of profit have resulted in the neglect of some issues that are to Cambodia's own detriment.

Just over a year ago, the Kingdom was shaken by two building tragedies in coastal provinces Sihanoukville and Kep that killed nearly 70 people who worked on those...