Copy Reference “We appreciate the Belt and Road Initiative, which has brought changes to our lives! Thank you, Chinese President Xi! Best wishes to the 19th CPC National Congress!” These lines, written in both Chinese and Khmer on a six-meter-long, two-meter-wide blue banner, are heartfelt congratulations to the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC) from some 200 local employees working at the Cambodia Sihanoukville Special Economic Zone (SSEZ).
On Oct. 21, Jiang Kexing, a CPC member with the Cambodia subsidiary of China's HOdo Group, flew to Beijing, bringing with him the gift banner, which also carries messages from respective Cambodian workers. “The Belt and Road has brought us happiness!” “The SSEZ job has changed my life!” “My income has doubled!” — each of the messages was written with heartfelt emotion. As their living quality has improved along with the development of the SSEZ, these workers are filled with gratitude for China, and their support for the China-proposed Belt and Road Initiative is honest and persistent.
Ten Years On
At one end of an avenue named after Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen in Cambodia's Preah Sihanouk Province lies the SSEZ, the best-known special economic zone in the country. Thanks to significant investment from China's HOdo Group, the economic zone covers an area of 11.13 square kilometers and has attracted 116 enterprises so far, employing 17,000 locals. As one of the largest, best-developed and most popular industrial parks in Cambodia, the SSEZ is dubbed a “Golden Bowl”.
Headquartered in Wuxi City, eastern China's Jiangsu Province, HOdo Group celebrates its 60th birthday this year, as well as the 10th anniversary of the SSEZ. Ten years ago, on an empty, desolate space, HOdo launched the construction of the SSEZ, which has now emerged as an international modern industrial park that features broad roads and rows upon rows of factory buildings.
“HOdo Group has grown from a micro business to an influential giant after 60 years of efforts,” remarked Sok Chenda Sophea, Minister Attached to the Prime Minister and Secretary General of the Council for the Development of Cambodia (CDC). “Its remarkable achievements have been widely recognized, and the SSEZ it has built, in particular, is not just a model project along the Belt and Road, but also plays an exemplary role in promoting cooperation between Cambodia and China.”
In April 2007, to echo the “Going Global” strategy initiated by the Chinese government, HOdo Group joined hands with several Chinese and Cambodian enterprises to invest US$150 million in establishing a special economic zone in Cambodia's Preah Sihanouk Province. Targeting enterprises mainly engaged in sectors such as textile and garments, suitcases and leatherware, hardware and machinery and wood products manufacturing, the SSEZ is the largest among the nine special economic zones approved so far in Cambodia. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen has likened the SSEZ to his “own son” on many occasions.
Talking about the strategy of integrating enterprise development with China's Belt and Road Initiative while achieving industrial transformation and upgrading through trans-regional cooperation, Zhou Haijiang, vice chairman of the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce and president of HOdo Group, believes there remains considerable potential to be tapped. “Labor-intensive manufacturing should be moved toward low labor-cost areas, and more time should be invested in research, development and innovation,” he said.
Seeking Common Development
The success of the SSEZ is largely attributed to the win-win mentality that closely binds together the economic zone and resident enterprises. Whether in logistics arrangement or in talent training, the economic zone has always struck a balance among various stakeholders including shareholders, employees, the Chinese side, partners, the local government and the local community.
The SSEZ provides one-stop administrative services, with all related authorities including the CDC, the Preah Sihanouk provincial government, a customs office and labor security department having set up offices here. It also provides dormitories for Cambodian workers, a vegetable market and a life service center, allowing enterprise employees to lead a comfortable life within the zone. In February 2017, the SSEZ Sewage Plant, which adopts the country's most sophisticated sewage treatment technology, officially began operation.
Compared to 10 years ago when many local residents of the town in which the SSEZ is located earned merely US$300 a year, today an average worker in the economic zone can earn this sum every month, while salaries for translators and skilled workers are even higher. About 70 percent of the local working-age population have found jobs in the zone, which has also led to a commercial development surge in peripheral areas. On many occasions, the Governor of Preah Sihanouk Province Yun Min has emphasized the position of the SSEZ as a major engine of the province's economic development. In 2016, Preah Sihanouk registered per capita GDP of US$1,800, ranking first among Cambodian provinces.
$1,800
In 2016, Preah Sihanouk registered per capita GDP of US$1,800, ranking first among Cambodian provinces.
116
The economic zone covers an area of 11.13 square kilometers and has attracted 116 enterprises so far, employing 17,000 locals. As one of the largest, best-developed and most popular industrial parks in Cambodia, the SSEZ is dubbed a “Golden Bowl”.
The SSEZ has also served as a cultural exchange center and a bridge of friendship linking people of the two countries. In April 2010, the economic zone began organizing Chinese employees to provide free Chinese classes at local primary schools in the evening. In cooperation with a Wuxi-based vocational and technical institute, it offers professional technical and language training for Cambodian workers and young people from surrounding villages. It has successively sponsored advanced education for two groups of Cambodian workers in China, and the seven students in the first group have completed the course and become bilingual professionals — a skill highly sought after in the zone. Furthermore, the SSEZ has donated money to the Cambodian Red Cross for eight years running, rebuilt schools, roads and temples for nearby villages and established a China-Cambodia friendship volunteer group, aiming to mobilize more people to help vulnerable members of the local community.
“The Belt and Road has encouraged more Chinese enterprises like us to take further steps abroad and we have confidence that we can build the SSEZ into a signature project along the Belt and Road,” said Zhou Haijiang. “Our goal is to make the SSEZ Cambodia's answer to Shenzhen, a pilot city for China's reform and opening-up, while also bringing new vitality to traditional Sino-Cambodian friendship.”
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen (front, right) visits the SSEZ exhibition space at the 4th China-ASEAN Expo in 2007.
At the Opening Day event for the Jiangsu delegation to the 19th CPC National Congress on Oct. 19 in Beijing, Zhou Haijiang, a delegate to the Congress and president of HOdo Group, delivers a briefing on the improved residential conditions of locals after 10 years of the SSEZ construction.