Travel ban on casino hub Sihanoukville: reports

Mar 05, 2021 Newsdesk Latest News, Rest of Asia, Top of the deck  

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Travel either in or out of Cambodia’s Sihanoukville province, encompassing the holiday town and casino hub of the same name, has been banned for now, starting on Thursday (March 4) as the authorities look to contain an outbreak of Covid-19 infection there, according to local media reports.

In recent years, the city of Sihanoukville (pictured) has become a focus for Chinese investment in real estate projects – some of them casino resorts – as well as for live-dealer casino-gambling video streaming services.

In August 2019 it was reported that Cambodia would no longer issue licences to online gambling businesses, and that existing licences would not be renewed once they expired.

Under the temporary, Covid-19 related travel ban, only ambulances and trucks transporting goods are allowed to go in and out of Sihanoukville province, media outlets the Phnom Penh Post and the Khmer Times separately reported.

The country’s prime minister Hun Sen had previously said that what was termed a “February 20 community event” of Covid-19 infection in Cambodia, was traced to a nightclub in Phnom Penh’s Boeung Keng Kang district, according to local media reports.

As of noon on Friday, Sihanoukville had reported 85 Covid-19 cases, some deemed imported from overseas, and some traced to the February 20 outbreak, the Khmer Times reported. Cambodia’s overall number of Covid-19 infection cases totalled 932, of which 420 involved Cambodian nationals.

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