Japanese-owned multinational Aeon Mall (Cambodia) Co Ltd, announced on Wednesday it is breaking ground on the construction of the Aeon Mall 3 project in Phnom Penh with an investment of more than $200 million.

The five-storey shopping mall will be located on the outskirts of the city and construction will take 27 months.

Hyundai Engineering won the bid to build the 200 billion won ($164 million) complex.

Phnom Penh Governor Khuong Sreng said at a groundbreaking ceremony that based on the 2035 Phnom Penh Land Use Master Plan, the southern part of the city has been designated as a new development area for high-rise construction and luxury satellite city projects to ensure the effective use of existing land in the city.

“I appreciate the progress and the decision of the company to invest in the development of shopping malls from the first project to the third project in Phnom Penh.

“On behalf of the Phnom Penh administration, I support, welcome and encourage investment in all service businesses in the city.

“We also support trade cooperation and opening the investment environment to be more attractive and trustworthy to businesses and investors,” he said.

Cambodian Valuers and Estate Agents Association President Chrek Soknim told The Post on Wednesday the southern satellite city – ING City – will become an attractive commercial hub for investment in commercial buildings in the future because the suburbs have large plots of land for real estate development.

“The mall will be a retail centre that attracts people from Takhmao town and Dangkor districts residents to shop and it will encourage more people to come and live in the 60m street area.

“This area is already a commercial location where land prices are already high, so land prices will continue to rise in the future. This area has the Aeon Mall 3 project and new condominium projects and land here costs more than $3,000 per square metre,” he said.

The Council for the Development of Cambodia (CDC) in December approved AEON Mall to invest $289.6 million in the 174,000sqm satellite ING City project, which is scheduled to open in 2023.

Aeon Mall 1 had a capital investment of about $205 million and Aeon 2 an investment of $120 million. It opened in June 2018 with a total area of about 68,000sqm in Sen Sok district.

Sreng said there are 263 Borey buildings and 1,424 high-rise buildings in Phnom Penh. In the first nine months of 2020, 1,020 new construction projects were under development with a total area of more than five million square metres and capital investment of about $2.3 billion.