SEOUL, KOREA - Booyoung Group, Korea's second-tier conglomerate, said on May 7 it broke ground for a large housing project in Phnom Penh, the capital of Cambodia. Once the project is completed, it would host 17,000 households in 40 apartment buildings and seven residential and commercial complexes on a 236,000-square-meter land.

 

 

The history of so-called "Booyoung Town" goes back almost ten years to 2004 when Booyoung's chairman Lee Joong-keun purchased land plots in the area with a belief that the housing demand would soar after the country undergoes a democratic process and people flock to urban areas. But the project was shelved following the 2008 global financial crisis.

 

For the past few years, however, the project revived as the Cambodian economy grows in excess of 6 percent a year and Booyoung's top management considered the project essential to move aggressively overseas to become a global construction contractor. As this is the largest-scale project of this kind, the Cambodian government is keen on its progress, sending high-ranking officials of the Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning, and Construction to the groundbreaking ceremony.