Thursday, 11 November 2010
David Boyle
The Phnom Penh Post
China’s commercial influence has grown in Cambodia with the signing of a refinancing deal for mobile provider Mobitel, according to international commentators, who said the People’s Republic may leverage its business interests for political advantage.
Last Thursday, Cambodian conglomerate The Royal Group signed a US$591 million deal to refinance its subsidiary Mobitel with the Bank of China.
It will enable The Royal Group to pay off a $421 million debt as well as fund future capital expenditures.
One week on, political and economic commentators said there were likely political considerations with the agreement – a viewpoint government and company officials have rejected.
“At the moment anything China does is viewed as having ulterior motives,” Carlyle Thayer, a politics professor at the Australian Defence Force Academy, a school managed by the University of New South Wales, told The Post.
“China has always manipulated loans to suit larger political purposes,” he said, highlighting the potential for a power play between Vietnam and China in the telecommunications sector.
Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications statistics show Mobitel is the largest mobile provider by subscriber numbers, while Metfone – a subsidiary of the Vietnamese military – has grown to become the second biggest.
China and Vietnam had been engaged in “something of a tussle” over influence in Cambodia since the 1991 Paris Peace Agreements, Thayer said.
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