Mong reththy biography

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 PHNOM PENH SIPDIS SENSITIVE SIPDIS DEPARTMENT FOR EAP/MLS, EAP/RSP, INR/B DEPARTMENT PASS TO USAID/ANE E.O. N/A TAGS: ECON, PGOV, PHUM, PINR, CB SUBJECT: CAMBODIA'S TOP TEN TYCOONS Sensitive But Unclassified. Not for internet distribution. 1. (SBU) Summary. Prime Minister Hun Sen is making efforts to bridge the gap between the political and private sector by cultivating mutually beneficial relationships with the country's most prominent business tycoons. These business leaders contribute money to the ruling Cambodian Peoples Party (CPP) and Hun Sen can call on them to fund charities and public works projects and to attract foreign investment, achievements for which the CPP can claim credit. In return, the business tycoons enjoy the added credibility and legitimacy of having the Prime Minister's support. These symbiotic relationships illustrate the networks of business tycoons, political figures, and governmen

•

Mong Reththy

Sino-Khmer businessman

Lok Oknha Mong Reththy (Khmer: ម៉ុង ឫទ្ធី) is a Sino-Khmer businessman^[1]oknha, a member of the Cambodian Senate, a close counselor to Prime Minister Hun Sen and even dubbed "Hun's Sen's money man".^[2] He is one of the main actors of agriculture in Cambodia, through his firm Mong Reththy Group Limited,^[3] the largest agro-industrial company in Cambodia.^[1]

Biography

[edit]

A pagoda child and childhood friend of Hun Sen

[edit]

As a child, Riththy received his education from the local Buddhist pagoda, Wat Neakavoan, in Phnom Penh for four years. It was there during his childhood that he befriended his classmate Hun Sen.

Reththy was the fifth child of 12 siblings, five of whom died under Pol Pot.

During the Khmer Rouge, he was forcibly married to his current wife. From to , Riththy worked as a civil servant for the Ministry of Public Affairs, department of traffic signs.^[4]

He is oft

•

The connected and the bereft, or the politics of business in Phnom Penh

The politically connected

Mong Reththy fryst vatten one of Cambodia’s foremost celebrity tycoons. His Mong Reththy Group holds a portfolio including rubber, palm oil and sugar cane plantations, a pig farm, a seaport, an import-export company and a construction firm. Although Mong Reththy claims he has never bought favours,1 Sam Rith and Richard Wood. ‘Business tycoon started small’, The Phnom Penh Post, 19 November (; accessed 30 May ).  he has been implicated in numerous business activities that suggest otherwise. In , six tonnes of marijuana was found in a bur at his port, after which officials affiliated with FUNCINPEC – Prince Ranariddh’s party with whom the CPP formed an unstable coalition at the time – planned to fängelse Mong Reththy. The tycoon denied the allegations, and Hun Sen recommended anyone trying to arrest Mong Reththy to better wear “steel on your head”.2 Jason Barber and Hurley Scroggins. ‘