More than three dozen companies representing potentially millions of investment dollars in Cambodia have been warned that their licenses might be revoked if they cannot explain delays in their proposed projects.
The Council for the Development of Cambodia, the government’s investment board, admonished the companies for not having functioned at all since they were issued licenses.
The companies in question were licensed between 1994 and 1999.
An announcement was posted at the CDC, naming 37 companies and calling on them to “explain the reason for the delay of project implementation within 30 days.”
If the companies fail to comply, “the CDC will remove [business] rights and take the companies off the investment lists.”
“There is nothing sensational in this,” said CDC Secretary General Sok Chenda. “Normally, when we approve a company, it should implement its project within six months. For whatever reason, they don’t start. These 37 [companies] are just on paper; if they explain to us [the delay], then there is no problem.”
Sok Chenda cited a 1997 subdecree that requires a minimum deposit of 2 percent of the capital to be invested.
The CDC began enforcing the subdecree in 1999 and, as a result, project implementation rates improved more than 85 percent.
Sok Chenda said if the companies want to restart their projects, all they have to do is comply with the 2 percent deposit provision and explain the delay.
The CDC revoked the licenses for 51 investment projects in June 2000 because of inactivity.The projects represented $219 million of pledged investment.
The CDC says it approved 841 projects between 1994 and 1999. The projects were worth a combined $5.8 billion.
The largest amount of investment money came from Malaysia.
(Additional reporting by David Shaftel)
