The event on Koh Pich, attended by several senior Cambodian government officials, is a joint venture between China’s AMC International and Malaysian company SV International.

According to a statement from the companies, the project will be developed on a 65-hectare plot in the southern coastal town and will include water parks, hotels, casinos, malls, gardens and churches.

AMC and SV claim they have been operating a hotel and casino in Sihanoukville; however neither of their websites reveal the name of this establishment.

The Wisney World project is operating as a joint venture under the name Wisney Resort City Development Co Ltd (WRCD).

Deputy Prime Minister Men Sam An said that currently Sihanouk province is becoming a more popular tourist destination and is attracting international investment .

She said this new project will bring in more tourists–both foreigners and Cambodians.

“The starting of this project is the right decision because now Sihanoukville is regarded as a rising star in the south east of Cambodia,” she said, “I hope that Wisney World will fill gaps that are lacking in Sihanoukville’s entertainment sector.”

Over 1.2 million Chinese visitors came to Cambodia last year, accounting for more than 21 percent of the total 5.6 million international visitors, according to figures from the Ministry of Tourism.

Much of the investment in tourism has been focused on bringing visitors from China to the Kingdom’s coastal town of Sihanoukville.

However, Sihanouk provincial governer, Yun Min said he don’t know of any huge project like this in his province.

“I don’t know about this project,” he said.

Sorn Seap, director of Phnom Penh’s Key Real Estate, claimed that he also wasn’t aware of the project, but said Sihanoukville holds potential for success.

“I know that the companies from China have a lot of money,” he said, “but such expensive projects, there must be strong support from the international market to be successful.”

As the beach town changes and the government welcomes the surge in development spending, many local owners have asserted that Chinese investment has created a closed loop with few new opportunities for Cambodians, forcing locals out of any potential economic gain.

Many local business owners have expressed worry that they will be edged out by the influx of Chinese investment.

The government and a Chinese company from Yunnan province will jointly develop the 460km expressway, Minister of Public Works and Transport Bounchanh Sinthavong told the National Assembly (NA) recently.

The government holds a 5 per cent stake and the Chinese company holds the remaining 95 per cent share in the project, with a 50-year concession period. The project will be carried out under the Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) model.

A concession agreement was signed by both sides in April this year for the first section of the highway, linking Vientiane with Vangvieng district, Vientiane province. This section is referred to as the Vientiane-Vangvieng Expressway.

Construction of the expressway is expected to begin when the rainy season ends, a source associated with the project said.

Bounchanh told the ongoing 5th Ordinary Session of the NA’s 8th Legislature that people in the villages of Naxon, Nongkhankhou and Ilaitay in Vientiane have been compensated for the loss of their property as construction will soon begin in this area.

Work is being accelerated, including the collection of information about other affected property, so that the remaining families can be compensated.

The expressway will cut through four districts – one in Vientiane and three in Vientiane province. Families in 65 villages will be affected by the project.

The cost of construction is estimated at about US$1.3 billion. Once construction begins, it will take about three years to complete the road.

With the speed limit set at 100 km per hour, it could take just over an hour to drive the 109.12-km expressway from Vientiane to Vangvieng, much less than the three hours or so it currently takes to make the journey on Road 13 North.

The toll fee for a one-way journey on the expressway was initially estimated at about 55,000 kip.

Road 13 North will remain open as an alternative route.

The four-lane Vientiane-Vangvieng Expressway, which will include an 875-metre tunnel and 45 bridges totalling 2,408 metres in length, will be built in line with Chinese expressway standards.

The Vientiane-Vangvieng section is one four sections of the Vientiane-Boten Expressway. The other three sections are Vangvieng-Luang Prabang, Luang Prabang-Oudomxay, and Oudomxay-Boten.

The expressway will be built parallel to Road 13 North and the under-construction Laos-China railway.

Speaking recently at the second China-Southeast Asia Business Forum in Kunming, capital of Southwest China’s Yunnan province, secretary-general of the Asean-China Centre Yang Xiuping said the two sides have formed an omni-directional, multilevel and wide-ranging cooperation pattern since the establishment of dialogue relations in 1991.

The theme of the forum was “Connectivity, Cross-Border Economy and Integrated Collaboration”. As a sideline event of the fifth China-South Asia Expo, more than 600 delegates of government officials, industry leaders and entrepreneurs from China and Southeast Asian countries participated.

“Both sides have entered a critical period of future development, with new opportunities ahead,” said Yang.

This year marks China’s 40th anniversary of reform and opening-up and the beginning of Asean’s second 50 years of development. Besides setting 2018 as the China-Asean Year of Innovation, the two sides are working together to formulate the China-Asean Strategic Partnership Vision 2030 to guide future relations.

The progress of regional integration is also at a key stage, said Yang, noting barriers in the current trend of globalisation.

Yang believes close interactions between China and Asean, especially with the promotion of the Belt and Road Initiative, have provided a strong driving force for regional connectivity, integration and cross-border economic cooperation.

In 2017, China-Asean trade volume exceeded US$500 billion, while two-way direct investment reached a cumulative total of nearly US$200 billion. The mutual visits amounted to nearly 50 million in the same year, according to Yang.

“In Malaysia, investment from China has shown a positive impact in terms of creating more jobs and stimulating the economy,” said Liew Sew Yee, vice-president of the National Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Malaysia. A total of 197 China-related manufacturing projects have been launched between 2000 and 2016, with a value of 14 billion ringgit (US$3.5 billion). More than 30,000 people are employed by these projects, said Liew.

In addition to trade and investment, Liew said cooperation in education is also beneficial for society. A case in point is the establishment of Xiamen University Malaysia, which aims to cultivate more talent from China, Malaysia and other Asean member states.

With a population of 600 million and an up-and-coming middle class, Liew said the market potential is huge in Asean, which is one of the world’s fastest growing regions. The middle class will account for 65 per cent of Asean’s entire population.

“Asean can benefit from the Belt and Road Initiative in terms of connectivity, trade, investment and tourism,” said Liew, who believes China’s strength in capital and |technology can help meet the demand in infrastructure in Asean countries.

Chanthachone Vongsay, vice-president of Lao National Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said the cross-border economy is key to enhancing cooperation between China and Asean. This includes establishing special economic zones and industrial parks along the border, more policy incentives and a proper legal mechanism for trade distribution.

To further develop regional integration, Yang from the Asean-China Center said that while strategic planning can provide guidance on a macro level, more negotiation in free trade, further cooperation in finance and innovation, and support from the community is of equal importance.

“With each other’s advantages, the strengthened cooperation between China and Asean can further spur trade and investment growth, providing more potential for the exploration of the regional economy in Southeast Asia,” said Liew from the National Chamber of Commerce and Industry of Malaysia.

The increase —which brings Bangko Sentral ng Pilipinas’ (BSP) key overnight rate to 3.5 per cent —comes in the wake of the record high inflation rate for the first five months of the year, which authorities had originally said would normalise by 2019 without any monetary policy tightening.

At the same time, BSP governor Nestor Espenilla Jr said regulators would not hesitate to tighten monetary policy further if its latest move proved to be insufficient in reining in upward price pressures.

“In deciding to raise the BSP’s policy rates anew, the Monetary Board noted that inflation expectations remained elevated for 2018 and that risk of possible second-round effects from ongoing price pressures argued for follow-through monetary policy action,” he said during a press briefing.

Bankers and financial market watchers have been clamouring for the central bank to raise interest rates since early this year in anticipation of the price spikes that inevitably came due to high international crude oil and commodity prices, amplified by the tax increases of the Duterte administration that came into effect on January 1.

The country’s inflation rate stood at 4.6 per cent as of May — the highest in at least five years.

The central bank chief said that, although inflation expectations remained within the target range for 2019, “elevated expectations” for this year highlighted the risk posed by sustained price pressures on future wage and price outcomes.

“Equally important, while latest baseline forecasts have shifted lower for 2018-2019, upside risks continue to dominate the inflation outlook, even as various measures of core inflation continue to rise,” he said.

The BSP also expects the impact of international oil and commodity price movements on overall inflation to be stronger given prevailing robust aggregate demand conditions.

“Given these considerations, the Monetary Board believes that further policy action enables the BSP to reinforce its signal on safeguarding macroeconomic stability in an environment of rising commodity prices and ongoing normalisation of monetary policy in advanced economies,” Espenilla said, adding that the board supported carefully coordinated efforts with other government agencies in implementing non-monetary measures to mitigate the impact of supply side factors on inflation.

“The Monetary Board also emphasized the BSP’s continued vigilance against developments, including excessive peso volatility, that could affect the outlook for inflation,” the central bank chief said.

This means Singapore companies will face the second-highest average wage premium out of 20 major economies examined in Korn Ferry’s Salary Surge study, putting profits under pressure .

The term “wage premium” refers to the additional salary employers will need to pay above normal inflation increases to secure the right talent.

Hong Kong tops the table with an average wage premium of US$40,500 annually, while Australia takes third place with US$28,600 per worker per year. Globally, the average pay premium for skilled workers in Asia Pacific could be more than US$14,700, the study showed.

“Although major economies can expect the highest wage premiums, smaller markets with limited workforces will feel the most pressure. By 2030, Singapore and Hong Kong – small economies with important financial centres – are forecasted to face a wage premium equivalent to about 10 per cent of their respective 2017 GDPs (according to IMF estimates),” Korn Ferry noted.

Said Ben Frost, vice president and general manager of reward products at Korn Ferry: “The talent shortage will force companies to think differently about career progression. If you don’t promote a highly skilled employee, a competitor probably will, so organisations may be pushed to award promotions earlier than they otherwise would.”

The estimated talent deficit of 85.2 million workers across the 20 major economies is expected to add some US$2.5 trillion to company payrolls each year, Korn Ferry said.

Said Dhritiman Chakrabarti, Korn Ferry’s Apac head of rewards and benefits: “The new era of work is one of scarcity in abundance: there are plenty of people, but not enough with the skills their organisations will need to survive.”

However, Chakrabarti also noted that competing for limited talent is unsustainable in the long run, and that companies should focus on engaging and reskilling current workers.

“In tomorrow’s world of work, the employees who will succeed won’t necessarily be the people with the highest level of academic achievement. Instead, they will be the ones who are adaptable and willing to learn, with enough flexibility to handle rapidly shifting working environments and less hierarchical structures,” he |said.

“Companies need to identify the talent of tomorrow and help them achieve their potential,”headded.

To conduct its study, Korn Ferry projected the impact talent shortages will have on wage bills by mapping its proprietary global pay data against the skilled labour shortage estimates across the same 20 economies at the same milestone dates.

It focused on the three knowledge-intensive industries identified, as it sees them as critical drivers of global economic growth.