phnom penh is enjoying a construction boom. all the buildings, covered in green nets are under construction. many of the buildings have chinese signs on them. between january and march 2016. $1.65 billion was invested in corporate construction. that's 3.6 times more than the previous year. this lake was once known as the capital's lake, it has since been filled in as part of the development project. in one corner of that site, a chinese real estate company has begun building a new town. >> on the compound, measuring 190,000 square meters, 18 apartment buildings and several stores will be built on an investment of $1 billion. each condo will be sold for more than $170,000. that's 170 years worth of the average annual income in cambod cambodia. parks and schools are also being built within the compound. the first stage of construction on the residential 3wi8dings is expected to be complete by the end of 2017. despite the schedule, half of the 1651 condos have already been sold. >> joint development of residential and commercial f

phnom penh is enjoying a construction boom. all the buildings, covered in green nets are under construction. many of the buildings have chinese signs on them. between january and march 2016. $1.65 billion was invested in corporate construction. that's 3.6 times more than the previous year. this lake was once known as the capital's lake, it has since been filled in as part of the development project. in one corner of that site, a chinese real estate company has begun building a new town. >> on the compound, measuring 190,000 square meters, 18 apartment buildings and several stores will be built on an investment of $1 billion. each condo will be sold for more than $170,000. that's 170 years worth of the average annual income in cambod cambodia. parks and schools are also being built within the compound. the first stage of construction on the residential 3wi8dings is expected to be complete by the end of 2017. despite the schedule, half of the 1651 condos have already been sold. >> joint development of residential and commercial f

i came out of worked with him for a few months in phnom penh. when i first completed the trip, i did some volunteer work outside an orphanage in phnom penh. fort a fellow who worked the european journalism center some months later. we kept in touch on facebook. he texted me one day that the european journalism center wanted to take a group of 12 senior eu journalists and show them cambodia and take them to projects funded by the eu and meet with the civil society activists and with journalists, and would i be willing to be the fixer and organizer for the project. i did that and after that, they want to do the same thing in myanmar. i did that for them a few months later. when i did the project in cambodia, there was an extraordinary factory run by a dutch fellow who wanted to create working conditions and treat employees the way you would if the factory was in the netherlands. just casually i told them about the book project. he was doing all of this extraordinary work and needed someone to help tell his story. he hired me to help him tell his s