Not very many tourists have visited Dara Sakor Resort so far
When completed next year, Dara Sakor International Airport will boast the longest runway in Cambodia. Nearby workers are clearing trees from a national park to make way for a port deep enough to host naval ships, reports The New York Times. What is going on?
The Chinese company building the airstrip and port says the facilities are for civilian use according to New York Times. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen denies that he is letting China’s military set up in Cambodia. Instead, his government claims that a global logistics hub will be developped in Dara Sakor. But a local fisherman told the New York Times reporter, that officials from the Ministry of Land Management had informed him, that his home would be demolished to make way for a “military port built by the Chinese.” His land is part of the 110,000-acre Dara Sakor concession leased more than a decade ago to the Chinese company Union Development Group - with 20 percent of Cambodias coastline. The since then constructed Dara Sakor resort and Koh Kong Casino have seen little tourism according to the New York Times. Less than 50 miles from Dara Sakor, another nearly empty Chinese-built development rises from another national park, the Sealong Bay International Beach Resort - just in the neighbourhood of Ream Naval Base. Satellite images from the European Space Agency show that the runway for the airport is far longer than is required for civilian aircraft, South China Morning Post has reported. Zhang Gaoli, the former vice-premier of China and chairman of the leading group for Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative, backed the project from the beginning, presiding over the signing of the agreement between Union Development Group and Cambodia, while he was the mayor of Tianjin. According to registration records, Union Development group is a subsidiary of Tianjin Wanlong Group, a Chinese property developer.
Dara Sakor is called a "model project" of Chinas Belt and Road initiative by MCC Singapore. But Reuters reported that Work began in 2008 - long before the Belt and Road initiative was launched in 2013 by China’s President Xi Jinping.
Not looking crowded: Koh Kong International Resort And Casino
