Neak Oknha Chen Zhi is a Cambodian business magnate and the chairman of Prince Group, one of the leading and fastest growing business enterprise groups in Cambodia right now.
While his business interests spread far and wide into many facets of Cambodia economy and society at large, Chen Zhi is seldom seen in public and much less is known about him. The only available information that can be gleemed about this businessman is from his official Twitter and LinkedIn accounts, which are most likely managed by his minders anyway.
Also known as Prince ChenZhi, Neak Oknha Chen Zhi, Cambodia ChenZhi, but mainly just Chen Zhi to most people, he is of Chinese origin who later became a naturalised citizen of Cambodia. He met up with the Prime Minister of Cambodia, Hun Sen, after he came to the country in 2010.
His heavy involvement in Prince Real Estate has led to construction of many projects in both Cambodian cities of Phnom Penh and Sihanoukville. These projects made way to a development of more than 1 million square meters. Such projects include Prince Plaza Center, Prince Modern Plaza, Prince IT Building and Prince City Center. They are mainly still in the construction phase but are going to be completed soon.
Prince Group has many other companies under its entity too - Belt Road Capital Management, Prince Bank, Cambodia Airways, Prince Supermarket, Awesome Global Investment Group and Canopy Sands Development.
Besides being actively involved in business, he’s also active in philanthropy.
Last year was Chen Zhi’s year of philanthropy in Cambodian society. He had agreed to donate US$3 million to help Cambodia make purchases of 1 million COVID-19 vaccines.
When the floods hit Cambodia, Chen Zhi offered support to the victims. He also appears to be into watches as his personal interests.
He has made a generous donation to set up the Prince Horology Vocational Training Center, which offers various full and partial scholarship placements for talented Cambodian students.
It seems Chen Zhi is particularly passionate about luxury watches and wants Cambodian-crafted watches to match those of Switzerland and Japan.
How did Chen Zhi actually come to Cambodia? He might have connections with people from different walks of life. Together with his background in real estate and his connections with them, he is able to succeed in mega projects. His adept networking skills might have helped him pay off.
Though Chen Zhi would prefer to stay away from the public limelight as much work is done off publicity, he has launched more than 240 charity events with Prince Group.
In fact, if verified, Prince Charitable Foundation forms the busiest allotment of Prince Group when Chen Zhi is not doing any banking, aviation, retail or real estate development work.
Chen Zhi and the Group helped to make sure many people are employed in Phnom Penh. They did this by starting a huge project. They had announced the launching of Ream City soon. Costing $16 billion, this project would measure 834 hectare as a city in Sihanoukville.
As it is going to be constructed on reclaimed land, Ream City will have the usual characteristics of planned cities - malls, schools, landed homes, condos, hotels, beach resorts, beach houses, parks etc.
Should his plans succeed along with the pace of growth being maintained, it would not be far for Chen Zhi to carve a household name for himself in Cambodia.
