IN FOCUS: Cambodia’s US$16 billion ‘eco-city' raises financial and environmental concerns

SIHANOUKVILLE, Cambodia: From the shady poolside cabanas of a newly opened beach club, only the buzzing of nearby passing sand-dredging ships disrupt the serenity of Cambodia’s largest ever coastal development.

This is stage one of the Bay of Lights — what is meant to be a US$16 billion 934-hectare “eco city”, nearly three times the size of Singapore’s Marina Bay.

Newly forged roads named Sunset Boulevard and Bay Esplanade lead to a menagerie of water sport offerings and a go-kart track. A golf course, shopping malls, luxury hotels and an international financial centre are planned for the future.

Visitors can currently pay US$95 for 40 minutes on a jet ski or US$180 for a ride on a jet pack. A reverse bungee can whisk holiday-goers high into the air, where they might fully see the extent of still-incomplete land reclamation stretching out into the Gulf of Thailand.

Sand has been poured at such a rapid pace that even Google Maps has yet to catch up with the reality that what has always been water, is now land.

The Bay of Lights is reshaping Cambodia’s southern coastline, a sparkling stretch of shallow water. By 2045, when the third phase is pegged for completion, the developers say 160,000 people might live in this new green city, which began in 2019.

The area is being developed by a company called Canopy Sands. Its parent company is Prince Holding Group, a powerful conglomerate led by Mr Chen Zhi, a business tycoon from China who became a naturalised Cambodian in 2014, a process that requires a significant investment or government donation.

The city was master-planned by Singapore’s Surbana Jurong, a government-owned consultancy company specialising in infrastructure and urban development.

For now, aside from a few