As of May, there were 31,258 foreigners of 60 nationalities residing in Preah Sihanouk province, including 23,375 Chinese and 2,946 Vietnamese. Among the foreign residents, 7,841 were female, according to a report by the Preah Sihanouk Provincial Administration.
The report said that the numbers had remained the same since April. It said they are working in 44 different businesses, including factories, casinos, hotels, guesthouses, condominiums, KTV, educational institutions, hospitals, pharmacies and beauty salons.
Due to the increase in the number of foreigners returning to do business in the coastal province, some construction projects which had been suspended are now beginning to move ahead, according to a provincial administration spokesman.
“As for construction activity, we see that there is some progress, but not a lot. Officials from the provincial Department of Land Management, Urban Planning and Construction are updating a report on the number of sites that have reopened, but we have not yet received the data,” said the spokesperson.
Provincial governor Kouch Chamroeun – in an interview with reporters during their visit to the province last November – said there were about 1,000 high-rise buildings under construction there, some of which had been suspended due to the Covid-19 crisis.
Construction of these buildings was well underway until the end of 2019, before the Covid-19 outbreak.
In 2021, three local real estate companies signed a cooperation agreement with a real estate company in Singapore to jointly resolve disputes in order to get the suspended buildings in the province to restart construction. The signing of this agreement was done through the coordination of the Ministry of Economy and Finance.
“The company has signed agreements with three local real estate companies to jointly mediate these disputes in an effort to get these buildings moving forward,” he said.
