[PHNOM PENH POST]
Documents obtained by The Post have shed new light on the scale of
Chinese investment connected with the controversial Boeung Kak lake real
estate project.
The US$98 million project in northern Phnom
Penh is the smallest of Mongolia Erdos Hongjun Holding Group’s planned
investments in the Kingdom, according to investment applications from
the Development and Reform Commission in Ordos City, China.
Starting
in the first quarter of 2012, the Chinese company and a Cambodian
partner plan to invest roughly $1.9 billion in aluminum mining and
energy projects.
In April 2012, construction is set to begin on
the first of two 135-megawatt power generators about 14 kilometres
northeast of Sihanoukville, according to the documents.
Erdos
and their local partner, Cambodia International Investment Development
Group, will invest some $383 million in the project. The power plants
will be located on an 18-square-kilometre site facing Sihanouk Bay. In
June, reporters confirmed ruling-party Senator Lao Meng Khin owned
Cambodia International Investment Development Group.
Construction
on an aluminum mine in Mondulkiri province is also set to begin in the
first quarter of next year and will be completed within four years,
according to the documents, published in Chinese.
Erdos and Cambodia
International Investment Development Group is set to invest more than
$1.5 billion in the project, with an initial investment of $80 million.
The partner group will make an initial investment of $20 million.
Despite
the scale of investment that Erdos and its partners will pump into the
Cambodian economy, NGOs have been unable to reach the Chinese company
since protests erupted over forced evictions at Boeung Kak lake in 2008.
“We
wrote letters and tried to contact the Chinese company. We tried to
connect the people at the lake with the Chinese company. But [Erdos]
never responded,” Sia Phearum, secretariat of the Human Rights Task
Force, said yesterday.
Several human rights organisations,
including Bridges Across Borders and the Business and Human Rights
Resource Center, have reportedly tried unsuccessfully to reach Erdos and
their partners.
Ou Virak, president of the Cambodian Centre for
Human Rights, said he was aware of a link between the Boeung Kak lake
development and other energy and mining projects. He called the
connection concerning.
“The concern is this company’s lack of
reputation after the problems at Boeung Kak lake. We expect similar
treatment of the people living in areas affected by [Erdos’] development
projects. These projects could be a disaster for villagers,” he said.
The
Post this week contacted Erdos Group in Inner Mongolia, but was not
granted interviews with officials at Ordos City’s Reform and Development
Commission and its representative for Cambodia International
Investment Development Group based in China’s Guangdong province.
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