"Kandal Airport Developer Begins Direct Negotiations with Households Seeking Better Compensation", 19 April 2023

Families facing eviction to make way for a $1.5 billion airport under construction in Kandal province continue to contest the compensation being offered by the project’s developer… the company began directly negotiating with some of the more than 60 families who had still refused to accept compensation.

Phlek Phary’s family and two others were summoned to meet with the company on Wednesday. The company offered Phary a package deal of $31,000 for her home and the fence on her land. But the company did not specify a breakdown of the compensation and Phary says she wants at least $36,000 for her home alone, on top of additional compensation for her farmlands.

“I think [the compensation] is still small and is inappropriate to accept,” said Phary, whose home is adjacent to her mother’s home, for which the company offered $33,000. Both mother and daughter rejected the compensation offers. Phary said her mother requested $50,000 because her property includes farmland where she tends to several dozen custard apple, mango, coconut and jackfruit trees

… “It is impossible to demand the market price,” a spokesperson for the State Secretariat of Civil Aviation …

Chrek Soknim, president of the Cambodian Valuers and Estate Agents Association, told … that before the new airport project, land prices in the area stood at about $10 per square meter. But since the announcement of the airport’s construction, prices for a small plot have soared to $60 to 70 per square meter while plots on the main road are reaching $100 per square meter…