Hong Kong-listed NagaCorp has shut down operations at its Cambodian integrated resort NagaWorld in Phnom Penh after 11 staff tested positive to COVID-19 over the weekend.
According to a business update filed late last night, the positive tests were returned after NagaWorld offered COVID-19 testing to around 3,000 employees in response to a spike in cases across the country since the start of the year.
The suspension of business will allow NagaWorld to conduct “a more thorough review of its precautionary and preventive measures already undertaken while running in parallel a wholesome cleansing of the entire property to further protect all of its employees and visitors alike,” it said.
“While the Company has implemented adequate existing precautionary measures so far, it would like to improve and allow the space and time to review fully and holistically all its health preventive and precautionary measures and to proceed with a complete and full set of sanitization processes of its business premises for the protection of its employees and guests of the property.”
NagaWorld was closed for just over three months last year, from 1 April to 8 July, during the initial wave of COVID-19 but had reported a strong recovery trajectory in the months since reopening, attributed to a sizeable expat Chinese community living in Phnom Penh.
Cambodia has also handled the pandemic well, with just 378 confirmed cases through all of 2020. However, there have been 442 new cases in the first two months of 2021 alone.
NagaCorp said it intends to reopen NagaWorld for business “after achieving some milestones of success in the fight and prevention of COVID-19” and after consultation with the Ministry of Health.
(Photo: NagaWorld)
