China to invest $880 million in building new int’l airport for Cambodia

Cambodian authorities have signed an $880 million contract with Chinese companies, allowing the latter to build a new international airport in Siem Reap next year.

The design drawing of new international airport in Siem Reap. [Photo: people.cn]

Under the deal, China's state-owned Yunnan Investment Holdings Ltd (YIHL) will build the new airport about 50 kilometers outside of Siem Reap’s provincial capital, while construction and mine clearance work is currently underway. Cambodia’s State Secretariat of Civil Aviation announced on Aug.15 that all legal procedures had been finished for the new project, while the government is negotiating with a French company that operates the city’s existing airport, determining how to compensate it for prematurely ending its concession license, according to Chinanews.com.

The agreement, signed by Cambodian Deputy Prime Minister Sok An and YIHL Chairman Sun Yun during Chinese President Xi Jinping’s visit to the Kingdom in October 2016, grants a joint investment consortium formed by YIHL, Yunnan Construction Investment Group, and Yunnan Airport Group an exclusive 55-year build, operate, transfer (BOT) concession on the new airport, according to The Phnom Penh Post, a daily-English newspaper published in Cambodia.