Cambodia's Developers Aim High Again
Phnom Penh, One of Asia's Few, Major Low-Rise Cities, Dusts Off Plans for Luxury Skyscrapers.
FEBRUARY 7, 2012
By PATRICK BARTA
The Wall Street Journal
PHNOM PENH—Cambodia's low-rise capital city is reaching for the sky—again.
Long known as one of the last major Asian cities without a skyline, Phnom Penh embarked on a high-rise building boom in the middle of the last decade, only to see it derailed by the global financial crisis of 2008 and 2009. Although a few tall buildings were completed, including a 32-story bank tower, other ambitious projects—like an 1,820-foot skyscraper that would have been the tallest in Asia at the time and among the tallest buildings in the world, behind Dubai's 2,717-foot Burj Khalifa—never got off the ground.
Now that Cambodia has recovered from the financial crisis—gross domestic product increased 6.0% in 2010, after rising 0.1% in 2009, according to the World Bank—its developers are dusting off ambitious plans again. They are betting that Cambodia could become one of Asia's next big investment hot spots, though it remains far from clear whether the country, one of Asia's smallest, can sustain the high-end, high-risedevelopment that has transformed other Asian cities in recent years.
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