SIEM REAP (AFP) – Cambodia’s Prime Minister Hun Manet yesterday inaugurated the country’s new billion-dollar Chinese-funded airport near the Angkor Wat temple complex, saying it would boost the vital tourism sector.
Phnom Penh became one of Beijing’s strongest regional allies under former strongman leader Hun Sen, with the Southeast Asian nation receiving huge sums of Chinese investment.
Hun Manet, who succeeded his father Hun Sen in August, hailed the Siem Reap Angkor International Airport as “modern” as he cut a ribbon to officially open it.
He said it was the first Cambodian air facility developed under Belt and Road global investment project, and the USD1.1 billion hub would stimulate tourism.
“It is another new historic event for the air transportation sector of Cambodia,” he said.
“Our duty is to make this airport work,” he said, “and to make this airport lift the standard of living of the people, to push the Cambodian economy.”
The country once had one of the world’s fastest-growing economies – averaging an annual growth rate above seven per cent for two decades before the pandemic. But poverty rates in the lower middle-income nation have yet to recover to pre-pandemic levels, according to the World Bank.
