Cambodia's debt a concern

Construction work continues on a new Chinese-funded bridge spanning the Tonle Sap river yesterday in Phnom Penh. (Heng Chivoan)

Wednesday, 29 February 2012
Don Weinland
The Phnom Penh Post

“And there have been a couple of examples where the work hasn’t been up to the quality it should be”

An International Monetary Fund and World Bank report has questioned Cambodia’s ability to deal with future financial crises if government borrowing increases.

While the report indicated that Cambodia was at low risk for severe debt problems, it highlighted the need for effective management of new debt and rapidly growing build-operate-transfer, or BOT, projects, which include the hydropower dams and road reconstruction conducted by Chinese companies.

This month alone, the Kingdom courted more than US$800 million in Chinese loans for infrastructure projects.

In two different speeches in February, Prime Minister Hun Sen said Cambodia would borrow $302 million from China for roads and irrigation systems, and would apply for an additional $500 million for similar construction.

Vietnam, Cambodia Discuss Expressway Project [-Who will build this expressway? More land eviction to come?]

Wednesday February 27, 2008
VNA (Hanoi)

PHNOM PENH, Feb 27 Asia Pulse - An expressway linking the southern Can Tho city of Viet Nam to Phnom Penh capital city of Cambodia will be built to facilitate the economic development in the two cities.

To this end, Vietnamese and Cambodian authorities met in Phnom Penh on February 26.

The future 230km highway is estimated to cost US$20 million per km in the form of BOT (Build-Operate-Transform). It will have 110km running on the Vietnamese land from Can Tho city via An Giang province to Phnom Penh .

The road is designed to be 35 m wide and have 6 lanes, with two more lanes likely to be added in the second phase.

The section on the Viet Nam territory has been approved by the government for construction.

The Can Tho-Phnom Penh Expressway, once completed, will link the Mekong delta rice bowl of Viet Nam with Cambodia and go over to Bangkok of Thailand, promoting the socio-economic development for the Mekong delta region in the countries.

Cambodian Secretary of State Tram Iv Tek said the project is big and important to his countrys socio-economic development so it will be proposed soon to the Prime Minister for instruction.