Your Venerable Monks,
Your Excellency Pan Guanxue, China’s Ambassador to the Kingdom of Cambodia,
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, National and International Guests,
Dear all Compatriots!
Today, it is my great pleasure with privilege to be here again with H.E. Pan Guanxue, China’s Ambassador to the Kingdom of Cambodia in the Groundbreaking Ceremony of the Construction of the Second ChrauyChangva Bridge, following the groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of Ta Khmao bridge, which is located at PrekSamrong on August 06, 2011. Once again, I would like to kindly request H.E. Pan Guanxue to forward the deepest gratitude of the people and Royal Government of Cambodia to the Government and People of the People’s Republic of China, who is very good friend and can be considered as siblings because people and both nations having close historical relationship.
The People’s Republic of China is our special development partner, who timely provides enormous grants and loans with no complicated conditions for the restoration and development of Cambodia in all sectors, especially four key priority sectors, namely water, electricity, road and human resource development, by allowing us to send human resources in all fieldsto train and learn experience in the People’s Republic of China every year. Since 2004 China has provided grants and concessional loans, totally amounting to about USD 2,093 million to restore and construct roads, bridges, and ports with total road length of around 1,500 kilometers long, three long bridge with the length of about 3,104metres, namely Sekong bridge, PrekKdam Bridge, and PrekDamak andconstractingTakmao bridge with thelength of 866 metres long and theSecond ChrauyChangvabridge with thelength of 719 metreslong.The second ChrauyChangvaBridge will be the second twin bridge after the twin bridge of PreahMonivongcrossingTonleBasac. These physical infrastructures are new fruitful achievement of our nation,serving as a catalyst for supporting and promoting economic growth at the present and future, enabling Cambodia to achieve its main objective to reduce the weight of difficulty and poverty of the people. In addition, while Cambodia is now facing severe flood, Chinese government provided humanitarian aid of RMD 50 million, equivalent to USD 7 million. In this spirit, I highly appreciate the government of People’s Republic of China, who is very close friend and can be considered as siblings of Cambodia because what China help us timely responding to our requests and need without complicated conditions, contributing to the development, promotion of economic growth and poverty reduction in Cambodia.
Taking this opportunity, on behalf of the government and people of Cambodia, I would like to express my high appreciation and take note of your great merit attained through helping us in Cambodia history and people’s sympathy. Based on this spirit, Cambodia strongly believe that our close friend, the Chinese government, will continue to help Cambodia construct physical infrastructure, which is one of priorities sectors, aimed at providing public good to maximize benefit of the society and our people life. In this regard, the Royal Government will continue its concerted efforts to restore and build the sector as already mentioned in rectangular strategy, by considering this sector as driver force of economic growth and effective mean to reduce poverty and tackle other issues.
In the proud spirit of the concert effort to build physical infrastructure, I would like to suggest the management of theMinistry of Public Works and Transport to continuously gather all means to mobilize investor to further invest in this sector to address traffic congestion, internal integration, effective and equal allocation of fruitful economic growth and economic diversification.
Truly, this bridge is a new architecture of the People’s Republic of China with the architecture of Japan for the effectiveness enhancement to support the development, promotion and progress of Cambodia’s society as H.E. Tram IvTek, the Minister of Public Works and Transport mentioned in his report. Indeed, as a result, the completion of the bridge construction not only reduces the poverty of Cambodian people through the reduction of commuting time and cost of transporting goods from the east of Tonle Sap River to Phnom Penh, but also cuts downtraffic congestions as well as traffic accidents and the burden on the existingChrauyChangva Bridge.This bridge is also an empowering symbol of the dragon’s lower neck, with the head located in Sihanoukville port, the neck located in Phnom Penh and national road No. 6A, the chest extending along the national road No. 7 and the tail located in Stung Treng province at the Cambodia-Laosborders, the left leg linking with Vietnam along national road No. 78 from Snoul toward O-Yadao Cambodia-Vietnam borders; and in the future the Republic of China will extend the right leg of Cambodia’s dragon toward Thailand, which at present the feasibility study is ongoing forthe construction of national road No. 73 from ThalaBarivat to PreahVihear province in order to link it with national road No. 62 toward PreahVihear province as well as national road No. 67and national road No. 68 towardSiem Reap province or toward the intersection to the O-Smach and Poipet Cambodia-Thailand border checkpoints. As national road No. 7 is the core of systematic linkage with areas having diverse potentials for agro-industry and tourism sectors, and is a connecting road in Great-Mekong Sub-region for thepromoting programs of developmentand the strengthening of cooperation between Cambodia, Laos, Thailand, and Vietnam, in line with the concept of “Four Countries, One Economy”, we can see that traffic activities passing Phnom Penh through national road No. 7 by crossing Chrauy Changva Bridgeis getting busy and in a great magnitude, as well as the continuous increase in vehicles, leading to traffic congestions everyday and every time. In this spirit, we necessarily need to construct a new Chrauy Changva Bridgewith the financing grant from the Republic of China, which is a very appropriate and important solution. In general, we hope that this bridge construction project will facelift Phnom Penh, which is the heart of the Kingdom of Cambodia, and expand the size of this capital.
In this context, I think this new Chrauy Changva Bridge not only serves as a new basis for expanding the scope of Cambodia’s economic power but also responds to the bigger scope of Phnom Penh, at present going through an expansion, which is in parallel with the increase in population and the continuous increase in transport modes. The capability enhancement of important infrastructure such as roads and bridges aimed to facilitate connecting traffics in Phnom Penh, and to connect with other provinces in the east of Mekong River and in north of Tonle Sap River and Tonle Sap River of Cambodia is very necessary because we can link an interwoven network of transport traffics of Cambodia with other important roads such as national road No. 8 toward Cambodia-Vietnam borders at AnglongChrey ,national road No. 1 toward Vietnam, national road No. 11 and national road 7 as such. In general, the Second Chrauy Changva Bridge will help ease a lot in the travelling of Cambodians to other regions in the county, which we have set to be the internal integration of the country, and create opportunities for cross-regional transports from all national roads such as national road No. 3, national road No. 4 toward seaports. Furthermore, this bridge is crucialin helping reduce the weight pressure of transports on and ensure the quality and eternity of the First Chrauy Changva Bridge, a gift of Japan for Cambodia, like the enhancement ofbonding and maintenance of immortal friendship between the three countries, Cambodia, China and Japan, and reduce the budget spending of the Royal Government of Cambodia for the maintenance of the first bridge as well. As always, the construction of all bridges takes into account of the facilitation of relevant waterway transports, water current, and the major floods at present have also given more experiences for the construction of bridges and roads as well. The linking of all these roads shows a new fact of Cambodia’s society, and makes Cambodia progress and prosper day-to-day, like what we have already known in a saying,” Where there is a road, there is hope” and the Chinese proverb ,“if you want to succeed in business, make a road first”. All these tasks is key to attract national and international investors,who can bring all sorts of jobs and careers for our national markets and people, which is an effective means in increasing incomes for the improvement of people’s livelihoods and the promotion of national economy.
At the same time, I myself would like to congratulate and admire project implementation company, technical inspection advisory company, the management and experts of the Ministry of Public Works and Transport, the Ministry of Economy and Finance, and in particular the ambassador, colleagues and experts of the Republic of China’s embassy for their assistance in saving funds from other projects since 2006 until getting a financial package for the construction of this bridge.
In general, Cambodia is highly proud of all the achievements that we have been making. In parallel, Imyself and on behalf of the Royal Government remain adhering to the will of supporting and encouraging construction, development and maintenance activities of roads, bridges, waterways, railways, ports, and airports so that these activities would be ceaselessly in active operation, and would ensure highly successful achievement in the reduction of hardship and poverty of Cambodian people as well as in the protection of sovereignty and territorial integrity, regional and global cooperation, which are in line with the development efforts on other sectors, for the sustained peace, order, political stability, welfare, and better livelihoods of the people. In this spirit, I would like to leave a message for the management and the experts of relevant ministries/institutions and local authorities to continue cooperation and efforts more vigorously in fulfilling your duties in order to promote the development and sustainability of transport network to ensure the continuity of traffics to all destinations in the country and with the neighboring countries in the region in both dry and rainy seasons. Besides, the contribution and cooperation of the people is a necessity for the building processes, development, maintenanceof roads and bridges. Moreover, I would like to request all compatriots to support and understand in resettlement solution of the project-affected land and resident. I also would like to thank our citizens, who voluntarily resettle their houses and farm produces.
Taking this opportunity, I would like to express my condolence to the grieving family, who lost their family members,properties, residences, farm producedue to the severe flood, thanks the government officials, the management of all Ministries/organizations for timely providing humanitarian aid to flood victims, and suggestrelated ministries/organizations to continuously pay high attention to improving Standard of living and evacuating people to safe place by rehabilitating roads and bridges damaged by severe flood and providing farm technique and seeds, livestock to the victims.
At the same time, In addition to the suggestion of the Minister of Public Works and Transports, I would like to further recall our compatriots to strictlyobey traffic law in order to prevent from any unexpectedtraffic accident, which may cause loss of human lives and properties. Once again,I would like toremind our citizens to not drive over speed, to wear seatbelt and helmet, to not drive when you are drunk and sleepy and prevent overweight, which makes the hard earned bridges-roads quickly broken.Once again, on behalf of the Royal Government and people of Cambodia, I would like to express my deepest thanks to the government and people of development partners and all International agencies forproviding credits to the restoration and development of Cambodia in all sectors, in particularfor humanitarian aid to help current food victims.
I would like to highly appreciate and continuously encourage the managements and civil servantsof the Ministry of Public works and Transports, local authorities and all relevant organizations, who have exerted their efforts in actively promoting the contribution of the construction of roads and bridge nationwide. At the same time, I would like to congratulate the two Chinese companies – Construction Shanghai Group, which implements the construction project and Guangzhou WanAn Company, which controls construction techniques.I am strongly confident that bothcompanies will make their continued efforts to implement their respective projects in the construction ofthe Second ChrauyChangva Bridgeas projected with high quality assurance.
In conclusion, with the opening the construction of the Second Chrauy Changva Bridge,I would like to wish the Venerable Monks, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, Distinguished National and International Guests, Civil Servants, Teachers, and Students, the four gems of Buddhist blessing: Longevity, Nobility, Health and Strength.
Selected Comments
