Koh Pich project set for $3.6m expansion

Wednesday, 10 February 2010 15:01 Soeun Say

FOLLOWING its opening in October, Koh Pich Island’s wedding and exhibition centre will be expanded with a further US$3.6 million investment, the developer Overseas Cambodia Investment Corporation (OCIC) told the Post on Tuesday.

Touch Samnang, project manager and architect for the sight under construction by OCIC, whose owners are the same as those of Canadia Bank, said demand had been strong at the wedding centre.

“A lot of customers have come to book our centre, but we don’t have much space,” he said. “So, we decided to build one more wedding centre to respond to demand from our clients.”

The second centre is to open in May, said Touch Samnang, adding that the site has already hosted 200 ceremonies since opening at the end of October. Construction began on the latest project at the end of last month.

A separate exhibition centre on Koh Pich, with stands for 300 people, will be ready even sooner – in two months, according to its General Manager Prak Chan Long. The site will include parking for 2,000 cars.

The 6-hectare Diamond Island Convention Exhibition Centre is part of a much larger $200 million OCIC development that will occupy 75 hectares next to the Bassac River, he added.

The Koh Pich development was slated for completion by 2016 when it was approved by the government in 2006, ahead of the subsequent economic crisis that has halted or delayed a considerable number of construction projects in Phnom Penh.