Cambodia’s Culture and Fine Arts Ministry has rejected a proposal by the Hong Kong casino operator NagaCorp to build a resort and theme park near the sprawling Angkor Wat temple complex after concerns raised by Unesco. 

The government’s rejection of NagaCorp’s plan to develop 75 hectares of land located around 500m south of the protected buffer zone of Angkor was announced earlier this week, according to Cambodian media outlets. 

NagaCorp, which operates the NagaWorld casino in the Cambodian capital, Phnom Penh, had announced in November that it was leasing the vast plot of land to build a $350m resort, pitched as Angkor Lake of Wonder, under an agreement with the government. 

The ministry’s decision to reject the proposal was made after Unesco’s International Coordinating Committee for Angkor (IIC-Angkor) expressed fears that it could affect the “outstanding universal value” that undergirds Angkor’s placement on Unesco’s World Heritage list. 

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