Flood aid continues to pour in Cambodia

Flood relief continued to trickle in yesterday, as the Kingdom received a $1.5 million gift from China and a small in-kind donation from ASEAN neighbour Myanmar.

Chinese aid was awarded in a ceremony yesterday at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs between Foreign Minister Hor Namhong and the Chinese ambassador to Cambodia, Pan Guangxue.

Ministry of Foreign Affaris spokesman Koy Koung said that the US$1.5 million donation from the Chinese government adds to the nearly US$8 million of in-kind contributions given last month to the Kingdom, in the form of mosquito nets, medicine, blankets and mats.

“China’s aid is very important to relieve the difficulties of Cambodia during the flood period, and we hope that the assistance will help the flood victims overcome their adversity and recover as soon as possible,” said Koy Kuong.

Cambodia’s ASEAN neighbour, Myanmar, donated eight tonnes of water and noodles for flood victims, airlifted into Phnom Penh yesterday morning by the country’s air force.

“Although our assistance is small, it is from the heart of the Myanmar government and its population,” said Cho Htun Aung, Myanmar’s ambassador to Cambodia.

“Our countries are good friends, and good friends help each other in tough times,” he added.

Nhim Vanda, deputy director of the National Center for Disaster Management, said that the Myanmar aid would be distributed to families in Prey Veng province’s Peamro district this morning.

Chinese engineer loves living in Cambodia

A major player in Cambodia’s hydro-electric industry is Sun Yanqian, Deputy General Manager, Senior Engineer at China Huadian Corporation, one of China’s largest producers of electricity with over one billion megawatts generated through hydroelectric, coal, solar and wind power.

Trained as a civil engineer, Sun, 60, has carried out projects around the world and is enjoying his life developing Cambodia’s hydroelectric power projects.

His latest project is a 338 megawatt dam along the Stung River in Koh Kong province.  The project was initiated on April 1, 2010, and should be finished by the end of June, 2013.

About 20 per cent of the dam has been completed, although there were engineering difficulties in the soil, the power lines to Koh Kong and the road to the project have both been completed.

The $550 million project is being built according to a build, operate and transfer (BOT) agreement with a 4-year construction period and an operational period of 30 years before it is handed back to the Cambodian government.

“The sales price for the electricity is 7.35 cents per kilowatt hour,” Sun said.

The generating turbines will come from various factories in China, including Shanghai, Chengdu and Hangzhou.

The projected output of the plant is one billion kilowatt hours per year, according to Sun.  The dam itself is 110 metres tall and 100 metres wide. There are 4,000 workers on the project right now, with 50 per cent Cambodians and 50 per cent Chinese.

Sun has spent his last 15 years in Cambodia, arriving first to build the terminal at Sihanoukville Airport, but had to stop the project during the fighting in 1997.

He later supervised construction on Route 21 to Vietnam and also worked on a medicine factory in Phnom Penh.

He and his wife have one daughter who is a PhD researcher at one of China’s most famous and prestigious schools, The Rockefeller-established Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences & Peking Union Medical College.

Chinese Ambassador to Cambodia Pan Guangxue, left, and Cambodia Prime Minister Hun Sen at the Stung River Hydro-electric Project in Koh Kong.

Sun and his wife are very proud of her.

After earning a degree in civil engineering in 1980, Sun went to work for a design institute in Beijing and in 1983 was posted to a design institute in Yunnan province.

There, he worked in the field of  light industrial design for sugar factories, chemical and textile manufacturing.

After Yunnan, Sun was posted to Vang Vieng in where he built a cement factory in a joint venture between Laos and China, working there from 1990 to 1994,

After Laos, Sun was posted to Karachi, Pakistan, from 1994 to 1996 where he worked on a water project funded by the World Bank.

He did not enjoy his time in Pakistan because of some fighting and strict policies.

Sun’s next posting was in Mauritius, building the five-star  Louie Hotel at the sea port.

“We built the hotel for a South African company and we were in charge of construction. I liked it because it was peaceful and no fighting. Europeans go there for tourism,” he said.

Since 2004, Sun has been involved with the hydro power project in Koh Kong, starting with a feasibility study.

Sun also served as project manager on a power line project from Phnom Penh to Battambong.

The project began in 2007 and was completed in June this year.

From 2004 to 2007, Sun worked on the Stung Atay,  a 120 megawatts dam along the same river, that is scheduled for completion in 2013. Now he’s working on the larger sister project.
Sun loves living in Cambodia.

“I think Cambodia is the best for me.  I’m used to living here. In China it is a big country and it is not so easy to get things done. For example in Cambodia, I have a schedule, I can do many things easily.  But in Beijing it is not so easy to get so many things done,” he smiled.

Sun hopes some day to retire in Kunming in Yunnan province.

“I like Kunming because it is a smaller place and cooler with a 2,000 metre altitude,” he said.

China IPO to benefit Kingdom

China's Sinohydro Group Ldt earned US$2.12 billion in an initial public offering on the Shanghai Stock Exchange, the company announced yesterday. The move came just two months before Sinohydro launches the Kamchay Hydroelectric Dam in Cambodia’s Kampot province.

The company expects the IPO to help fund future projects in the Kingdom, as well as several construction works in China and abroad, Sinohydro Cambodia representative Zhao Jinhui said yesterday. “We should be able to use money from this IPO to fund our projects here directly,” Zhao Jinhui said. “We won’t need to go to the bank for funding anymore.”

The company sold 3 billion shares at CNY4.50 (US$0.70) per share, 500 million shares less than announced last week in a Shanghai Stock Exchange prospectus.

The offering was among several in China that struggled this week with uncertainty in the global markets, Reuters reported.

Sinohydro is planning or currently building several other projects that will keep the company in Cambodia long after the December 7 launch of the $280 million dam. Work on a bridge, another dam and two large-scale irrigation systems are underway, with several other projects presently being discussed, Zhao Jinhui said. However, specific details on the four former projects were unavailable, and he declined to disclose the nature of those under discussion.

Sinohydro will operate the 194-megawatt Kamchay dam for 40 years before transferring management to Cambodia. Foreign management of dams in Cambodia is the only inroad for such large-scale projects at present, University of Cambodia business and economics lecturer Chheng Kimlong said yesterday.

“What ministry could manage this project right now?” he said. “It’s not cost effective for the government to run these things. That’s why they’ve opened up to the private sector.”

The greatest problem posed by foreign private companies operating in Cambodia is a lack of governmental control over environmental impact, Chheng Kimlong said.

While companies like Sinohydro offer the Kingdom a wealth of green technology, the government does not yet have the means to regulate them.

“This makes it harder for the government to make sure that the technologies these companies use don’t harm the environment,” he said.

Chinese companies, once scorned by activists for their disregard for the negative social and environmental impact of their projects in Cambodia, have made recent progress in this regard, Chheng Kimlong had said earlier, citing a moratorium on another Chinese dam project due to environmental concerns.

Ice sculptors from China in Phnom Penh

Chinese ice sculptures in Phnom Penh by sculptors from Harbin, China.

Dong Su has spent his last month and a half in Phnom Penh at freezing temperatures. At Ice Art, an ice sculpture exhibition on the capital’s Diamond Island, the 32-year-old from Guangdong, China, has hosted an increasing number of Cambodian guests on a tour through sparkling ice castles and palaces.

Reactions to the show from the primarily local audience have been that of amazement, Dong said.

“They’ve never seen anything like this before. It’s a completely new experience for almost every visitor who comes to our exhibition,” Dong said.

“And for many of our guests, it’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. We want visitors to walk away with a lasting impression.”

A team of 30 Chinese operates the exhibition, 15 of which are ice sculpting masters from the northeastern city of Harbin. Harbin gained international fame after the opening of China in the late 1970s for its annual ice sculpture exhibition. Dong said he has brought some of Harbin’s most talented ice sculptors to Phnom Penh to produce the show which is housed is a 5,000 cubic metre building.

This isn’t the first international appearance of China’s renowned ice sculptures. Dong’s company, Ice Art, has opened exhibitions in the US, Canada and Germany. Other Chinese companies that specialise in ice presentations have visited Hanoi, the capital of Vietnam.

The decision to open an exhibition in Phnom Penh was purely economic. Current growth in Cambodia’s economy resembles closely that of China some 20 years earlier, Dong said.

“Being here in this country now is definitely an opportunity for businesspeople,” he said. “Right now you see many Chinese people coming to Cambodia to do business. This is because we were in the same situation not long ago. We recognise this chance to do good business.”

Anyone with transportation – whether it be a motorcycle or a luxury car – is the target audience for the show. Dong said the appeal of ice sculptures is not limited to a particular age group or income strata. Tickets are priced low so as to accommodate a majority of the capital’s population.

Despite the similarity in growth patterns between Cambodia and China, customer behavior is disparate, Dong said. Similar ice shows in China and Hong Kong have attracted long lines of visitors for a short period of time, he said. Then the crowds disappear all together. Cambodians, however, slowly trickle in over a long period of time.