dkhmernews

The Council for the Development of Cambodia (CDC) has approved 53 investment projects in the first half of 2009, worth a total of 1.2 billion U.S. dollars, local media reported on Wednesday.

The figures represent a sharp drop from the first half of 2008, when the CDC approved 4.43 billion in investments, including a 3.8 billion U.S. dollars tourist development in Koh Kong by Chinese Union Development Group.

A CDC official, who declined to be named, was quoted by the Phnom Penh Post as saying that investment had taken a hit from the global financial downturn, but that in relative terms the Kingdom remained an attractive destination to investors.

"Today's economic crisis has caused direct influxes of capital around the world to decline by 50 percent in the first half of 2009, and cross-border investment to decrease 77 percent," the official said.

Of the investments approved, 354 million U.S. dollars went to the tourism sector, 323 million U.S. dollars to agriculture, 303 million U.S. dollars to industry and 241 million U.S. dollars to the private-sector developments.

The CDC official added that Cambodia's pre-existing investment projects had boosted the current economic activity in the country and would continue to propel private-sector development.

According to the CDC, ASEAN countries, including Thailand, Vietnam, Singapore and Indonesia, were the leading sources of investment in the first half, with 389 million U.S. dollars in investments. Second to ASEAN were other Asian investors - including from China, South Korea, China's Taiwan, Japan and China 's Hong Kong, which have invested a total of 367 million U.S. dollars.