Austrian manufacturer EGLO Lights International began sales of its high-end lighting products in Cambodia Saturday.

EGLO Asia General Manager Ehsan Sivarajah said it was the first time fixtures of such high quality have been available directly to domestic consumers on a retail basis.

“Our main intention is to be the domestic supplier of quality lighting products to hotels and homes being built here,” Sivarajah told guests at the store opening on Monivong Boulevard.

EGLO will use its Vietnamese distributor TTD Trading and Service Co to run its multi-storey showroom and warehouse in southern Phnom Penh after a search for a qualified Cambodian distributor proved fruitless, Sivarajah said.

He added that he expects TTD will play the same role when outlets are eventually opened in Myanmar and Laos.

With some 3500 individual items available in its catalogues, EGLO’s products range in price from US$25 to over $1,000 each, but generally provide a significant step up from most light fixtures retailed domestically, Sivarajah said.

“We represent European style,” he said. “We hope to change Cambodians’ minds with better lights than the lower-quality Chinese products presently available.”

The Phnom Penh showroom will be able to supply smaller orders from its 3000-item storehouse, but large or unique orders, such as those the firm expects from hotels, must be shipped directly from its factory offshore.

“To have style like this, it’s great,” said Nessim Djemail, general manager at construction firm Exeliance Asia, a potential client. “There is a potential market here, although it will take time to take off.”

Sivarajah declined to comment on the cost of opening in the Kingdom, saying only that it is less than the firm’s average for a new location.