Iconic market gets makeover

An elegant dome is seen atop French style Centeral Market “Phsar Thom Thmei” as it reopens Wednesday, May 25, 2011, in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, after seven years of renovations. Central Market is a large market constructed in 1937 in the shape of a dome with four arms branching out into vast hallways with countless stalls of goods. (Photo: AP)

May 27 2011
By ROBERT CARMICHAEL
Independent Online

Whether you are a city resident or a foreign tourist, the chances are that one of the 3,000 vendors at Phnom Penh's Central Market has what you want.

Some stock all manner of food - meat, fish, rice, fruit and vegetables. Others sell a lot more - from stationery to pirated DVDs, electronics to clothing and the ubiquitous tourist trinkets.

The art deco Central Market with its vast central dome with four wings radiating off at right angles, was built in 1937 when Cambodia was under French colonial rule. For a time, its 45-metre-diameter dome was the sixth-largest in the world.

Cambodians call it Psar Thmei, which means the New Market, but decades of neglect meant the building and its surrounds had become rundown.

That has now changed. On Wednesday, the market was inaugurated for a second time after a 6-million-dollar refurbishment, courtesy of the French development agency Agence Francaise de Developpement in cooperation with city hall.

The agency's country head, Eric Beugnot, said motivation for the renovation, which began in earnest in January 2009, was twofold:

The first was to refurbish an established landmark of the capital, but more importantly, renovating the market with its thousands of stallholders and central location would maintain Phnom Penh's economic heart.

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