Final phase of regional corridor due to start

via CAAI News Media

Wednesday, 24 February 2010 15:03 Sam Rith

CAMBODIA will complete construction of the last stretch of a new road linking Thailand and Vietnam through the south of the Kingdom in 2012, officials said Tuesday, as reports said Vietnam would begin a new Mekong Delta coastal road next month.

Vietnam’s Thanh Nien Daily reported late Monday that the building of the 220-kilometre road through the south of the country in Kien Giang and Ca Mau provinces would get under way in March as part of a nearly 1,000-kilometre highway, the Thailand-Cambodia-Vietnam Southern Coastal Road Corridor, designed to boost economic activity in the region.

Var Sim Sorya, director of Planning Department at the Ministry of Public Works and Transport, said Cambodia had almost finished its section of the highway.

“We only have left about 17 kilometres of road from Kampot to the Vietnamese border,” he said.

Work on National Road 48 from Sre Ambel in Koh Kong province to the border with Thailand is already complete, he added, along with another road from Veal Rinh, Preah Sihanouk province to Kampot. The remaining 17-kilometre stretch to the Vietnamese border already existed but had not yet been standardised.

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) and South Korean government have already supplied funds for this section.

Ouk Nida, senior project implementation officer at ADB in Cambodia, said the 17-kilometre road from Kampong Trach in Kampot to the Vietnamese border would be completed in 2012.

“Now we are preparing documents for the bidding,” he said, adding he was unable to recall the projected cost.

Tourism Minister Thong Khon said Tuesday that the project would help attract greater numbers of tourists to Cambodian beaches and other sites including Bokor in Kampot province.