ACLEDA Bank president and chief executive In Channy (centre) sprinkles flower petals during a groundbreaking ceremony at the site of the new ACLEDA headquarters in Phnom Penh yesterday. Photograph: Vireak Mai/Phnom Penh Post

ACLEDA Bank, Cambodia’ leading commercial bank, held a ground-breaking ceremony yesterday for its new 20-storey headquarters, which will be located directly behind its present building.

The new headquarters will cover 43,000 square metres, with parking for 700 cars. Construction is scheduled for completion in two years.

ACLEDA Bank president and CEO In Channy said at the ceremony the bank had grown tremendously in the 12 years since it was granted its banking certificate by the National Bank of Cambodia.

Loan portfolios have grown on average by 47 per cent and average savings growth has been 98 per cent in that time.

In 2007, Acleda’s total loan portfolio was valued at US$15 million and savings totalled $344 million, but loan portfolios had grown to $1.2 bill-ion and savings had risen to $1.4 billion by late November 2012, Channy said. There are 338 branches and 7,611 staff members in Cambodia.

“We have met the challenge of serving our customers and increasing the number of customers from year to year, so we decided to build new headquarters with wide office spaces and upgraded safety features to complement the demand of our increasing customers,” he said.

The building will be on Preah Monivong Boulevard, in Phnom Penh’s Daun Penh district. Construction will be handled by Hyundai Amco, which has taken on construct-ion projects in South Korea and other countries.

Channy said the new headquarters would have a security system, energy conserving features and a centralised network monitor.

He did not disclose the budget for the project but did say: “We spent $6 million on the current six-storey headquarters, but we will spend several million dollars for a several-storey building.”  

Bu H W Son, the managing director of Hyundai Amco, said: “They will spend $45 million on this construction over two years.”

He added that the building would be built to internat-ional standards and have good-quality equipment.