Funding green light propels Sihanoukville

The 23.502 billion yen loan agreement between the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and the Government of the Kingdom of Cambodia, will help realise the development of a new container terminal at Sihanoukville.

Lou Kim Chhun, the director general of the Port Authority of Sihanoukville (PAS), told Khmer Times: “PAS will invest about $209 million to build a new 350-metre container terminal equipped with modern shipment facilities.”

He added that the expansion is intended to address a surge in the volume of containers passing through the country’s only deep-sea port, which is expected to be overloaded by 2023.

The project will increase the container cargo handling capacity at the port by approximately 450,000 teu, more than one and a half times the current capacity, allowing it to accommodate larger vessels and reduce their transiting times.

Mr Kim Chhun said the construction of the new container terminal will start by the end of 2018 or early in 2019 at the latest and is scheduled to be finished by 2022 or early 2023.

The only deep-sea port in Cambodia, Sihanoukville Port is a key logistics hub that supports the national economy. Its strategic location on the Southern Economic Corridor, which has been a focus of support from Japan, could see the port become a logistics transfer hub for ASEAN trade.

Since 1999, Japan has provided continuous support for improving the infrastructure and capacity at the port, and in June 2017 acquired equities in the Port Authority of Sihanoukville.