Total ₹550.00
-
admin
- Posted on
- Categories:Travel
- 0 comments
Image credit – iStock-1135709143Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet on Monday inaugurated a major new airport to serve the capital Phnom Penh and for tourism and foreign investment.
Techo International Airport is a three-runway replacement for the nearly 70-year-old Phnom Penh International Airport, which had only one runway.
The new US$2 billion facility, about 30 kilometers south of Phnom Penh in Kandal province, began operations in September. It is a joint venture between the Cambodian government and the foreign Cambodian Investment Corp.
Hun Manet said he hoped the new airport would attract more tourists and investors to Cambodia “before the arrival of Covid-19”.
The new airport is expected to initially handle 13 million passengers, but its capacity will increase to 30 million after 2030 and 50 million by 2050.
Upward prospects for foreign tourists have been overshadowed by the high-profile death of a young South Korean who worked at one of Cambodia’s online fraud centers.
Many workers there are held as virtual slaves to commit online fraud, a multi-billion dollar organized crime activity.
Last week, the United States and Britain imposed sanctions on the organizers of the Great Cambodian gang and its alleged approval by the Federal Court in New York highlighted the illegal industry.
Tourism took another hit in July when Cambodia was embroiled in a five-day standoff with neighboring Thailand. The ceasefire has stopped, but tensions are high.
Cambodia received about 4 million foreign tourists between January and August this year, Hun Manet said in September. It received 6.7 million last year, a 23 percent increase from 2023.
It is Cambodia’s second new major airport in two years. In October 2023, Siem Reap-Angkor International Airport opened to serve Cambodia’s most popular tourist attraction, the century-old Angkor Wat Temple Complex.
