Construction of WorldBridge Industrial Developments Co Ltd’s $30 million WorldBridge i4.0 SME Cluster zone will be delayed by one or two months due to the recent lockdown in Phnom Penh and Kandal province’s Takmao town, chairman Sear Rithy told The Post.

The small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) cluster park broke ground on November 27 and construction was scheduled to be completed in eight months.

The project is located along National Road 21 on 6ha in Rokar Khpos commune’s Koh Kor village in southeastern Takmao, across the road from the affordable housing development project "Satellite Serei Mongkul City" of Worldbridge Homes Co Ltd, another subsidiary of Worldbridge Group.

Now with lockdown restrictions eased, Rithy said: “Construction is in progress, but it may take a month or two longer. We’ve seen that many SMEs are interested in this SME cluster".

The SME cluster park is divided into seven sections that include a general service centre, an industrial equipment support centre that is flexible and easy to engage with, infrastructure installations and a logistics service centre.

Federation of Associations for Small and Medium Enterprises of Cambodia (Fasmec) president Te Taingpor told The Post that the cluster is in line with recognised international standards and can improve local SMEs’ capabilities and competitiveness.

"The SME Cluster Park is suitable for the small and medium enterprises that comply with these standards. We support this project’s contribution to SME promotion by providing access to the Worldbridge Industrial Zone," he said.

The government will provide tax and customs incentives to SMEs housed in the cluster park, in a bid to allure more enterprises to the project, he said.

However he cautioned that the costs to join the cluster park would be out of the reach for smaller SMEs, especially cottage industries.

At the ground-breaking ceremony last year, Minister of Industry, Science, Technology and Innovation Cham Prasidh said SMEs must embrace the technologies associated with the fourth industrial revolution and integrate them into their production in the cluster park.

“We’ve set up the industrial cluster park to support and orient SMEs toward exporting goods to the world market,” he said. “The industrial park is essential for them to churn out more exports and match market demand.

“We are pulling out all the stops to motivate them to bring the latest technology into the industrial cluster park for production and exports to satisfy market demand.”