THE Siem Reap-Angkor International Airport in Cambodia officially opened its doors to global visitors earlier this week.
The Chinese-financed project cost about US$1.1 billion and is part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative.
The facility serves as a main gateway to the country’s major tourist attraction – the Angkor Wat temple complex in the northwestern province of Siem Reap which is about 900 years old.
The structure boasts a 3,600-meter-long runway and can handle 7 million passengers every year.
The airport started its operations on October 16 while the first direct flight from China landed on November 12.
There are plans to expand its passenger capacity to 12 million passengers by 2040.
Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet commended China’s Belt and Road Initiative for providing less developed countries an opportunity to improve their infrastructure and how his country benefitted from the said initiative.
“The Belt and Road Initiative is designed to help [other countries] develop and provide access and opportunities for less developed countries to develop, especially [through the] access to financing, transfer [of] technologies, and quicker access to abilities to build infrastructures needed to support development and growth. In terms of the BRI, I think for Cambodia we have greatly benefited from that as well as many countries,” according to Hun Manet, Prime Minister of Cambodia.
The inauguration had opened earlier this week and was presided over by the Prime Minister.
