The world's new tallest pair of towers headed for Cambodia

The world’s tallest pair of buildings, the Petronas Twin Towers in Kuala Lumpur, have a challenger, with a Chinese consortium winning the commission to build a 133-storey, 560-metre pair of skyscrapers in Phnom Penh in Cambodia.

When completed, the impressive development known as the Thai Boon Roong Twin Trade Center would beat out the current record-holders in Malaysia by 108 metres, and would be the fourth highest buildings in the world – assuming nothing taller pops up in the meantime.

The lofty achievement will come at a price of $US2.7 billion ($3.6 billion) and it’s expected to take about five years to complete. It will house 1.6 million square metres in total, with a mixture of commercial and residential properties on the cards.

The building project will be headed by Sino Great Wall International and Wuchang Shipbuilding Industry Group. Final approval was granted to the Thai Boon Roong Group – who are managing the development with the Sun Kian Ip Group – early in May 2016.

It’s not, however, a guaranteed success, with the Guardian reporting in 2015 that Cambodia’s current tallest building, the Vattanac Capital tower, had an occupancy rate at around 30 per cent.

It’s also not the only ambitious architectural project planned for the country’s capital, with the Zaha Hadid-designed Sleuk Rith Institute proposed as an archive of Khmer Rouge history and a major genocide studies centre. 

An image of the proposed towers. Picture: YouTube – Something New