Address at the Ground Breaking Ceremony of the National Road No 57B

Address at the Ground Breaking Ceremony of the National Road No 57B
with the length of 176.35 km from the National Road No 5 at Thmor Kol-Borvel-Sampauv Loun and Borvel-30 Village-Phnom Preuk and 30 Village-Kam Reang-O Dar

March 21, 2011

Venerable Monks,
H.E PHAN GUAN XIA, Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China to the Kingdom of Cambodia,
Excellencies Members of the Senate, Members of the Parliament and Members of the Royal Government,
Excellencies, Ambassadors, Distinguished National and International Guests,
Civil Servants, Armed Forces, Compatriots, Teachers and Students!

It is my great pleasure today to once again participate in the ground breaking ceremony of the National Road No 57B with the length of 176.35 km from the National Road No 5 at Thmor Kol-Borvel-Sampov Loun and from Borvel-30 Village-Phnom Preuk and from 30 Village-Kamreang-Odar in the northern part of the Kingdom of Cambodia. At the same time, I am pleased to note that in only the first 3 weeks of March 2011, I have participated with H.E PHAN GUAN XIA, Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China in the inauguration ceremony of infrastructure construction of the Ministry of Public Works and Transport for 4 projects, which is the concessional loan from the Government of China for the construction, along with the counterpart fund of the Royal Government for dealing with resettlement and people’s accomodation, demining of the unexploded weapons as well as the responsibility of custom duty imported for the construction. Those four projects include Prek Tamak Bridge, National Road No 59 with the length of 144 km from the National Road No 5 at Kaun Damrey Village, Banteay Meanchey Province to the National Road 57 at Steung Karch Village, Pailin Province, Container Terminal of the Phnom Penh Autonomous Port, and the contrsuction project of the National Road No 57B, which is being celebrated to start the constrcution.

Taking this opportunity, on behalf of the Royal Government and people of Cambodia, I would like to express my deepest thanks to the people and Government of the People’s Republic of China, who have always been our historically close friend long time ago, is the potential development partner, unconditional financing owner, who is always timely responding to the need and request for the development of all sector in Cambodia, especially the agenda for rebuilding and developing socio-economic infrastructures such as roads-bridges, ports and electricity network ...etc. These achievements are not only the evidence of our friendship and economic and trade cooperation between Cambodia and China, but is also the key contribution with potential to sustain the process of socio-economic development aiming to reduce poverty of our people.

The People’s Republic of China, so far, has been supporting to construct lots of National Roads-Bridges in Cambodia with the length of 1,400 km as well as building irrigation systems, electricity, and continually has received many human resources in these sectors to be trained in the People’s Republic of China every year. Moreover, the Government of China has also paid attention to encourage Chinese investors to invest in Cambodia with the first rank.

Based on the perspective of the Royal Government to transform the former fighting frontline to be an area of development, and transform all Cambodian borders to be the areas of peace, cooperation and economic development, I strongly believe that the National Road No 57B is another significant strategic road in the northern border of cambodia. This area used to be the hot frontline during the war, and after 7 January 1979-1996, it was controlled by Khmer Rouge, leaving the ditches of grenades, bullets, and mine plantations with hundred tons of all kinds. Therefore, it is true that this road is the road network that has history and geography of closer relation, and is interconnected with complementary potential with the National Road No 57, which is almost completed and the National Road No 59, which has just recently been started with the construction. This shows that the achievement of this National Road No 57B is another additional input to support the people’s living in this area.

I strongly believe that these road networks will jointly contribute tremendous interest to transform this northern border of Cambodia to be more developed as other areas through out the country as well as the nearby areas of the neighboring countries. The National Road Passage No 57B, which is from Thmor Kol of Battambang Province to Borvel and then Sampauv Loun, will connect with the Cambodia-Thai border, which is called Damrey Border Pass, as for the Road Passage from Borvel to 30 Village and then Phnom Preuk, will connect with Cambodia-Thai border called O Rumduol Border Pass, and the third Passage from the 30 Village to Kam Reang and then O Dar, which is another Cambodia-Thai border pass, where the people of the two countries exchange their products constantly.

The situation of these roads is truly the economic vein for the nation and families and people as a whole. Furthermore, this reflects the practical result of the stategic implementation of the internal integration within the Kingdom of Cambodia and with the neighboring countries as well as the integration in GMS, ASEAN and the whole world. In fact, the interconnected and potential economic veins will truly contribute to the transformation of the far-flung area and border to be areas of fast development as it will make our people easy to generate income to support and upgrade their living by exchanging goods at the border. In this regard, the area located next to the National Road No 57B is crowded with people who are mostly doing farming and trade with Thai people, especially the exchange of agricultural products, which are being planted by our people at the border with high yield such as corn, bean, cassava, mulberry tree, and lead to planting rubber that can be exported up to more than 10,000 tons per year.

Along with this, this economic vein will also provide opportunity for the Royal Government of Cambodia to build hospitals, schools and the connection of other roads which may help attract investment in all sectors and bring about richness in business with harmonization between our people and thai people. This achievement is the fruit of the successful implementation of the Win-Win Policy of the Royal Government that completely closed down the political and military organization of the Pol Pot genocidal regime and build the national unity, which is the cause of the maitaining peace, political stability, safety and social order, which is the pre-requisite for socio-economic development for our people and nation. All these pre-conditions have realized the interconnected connectivity of this communication infrastructure and it will pose favorable condition with lots of options for the transportation to Battambang provincial town and continue to Pailin and then to the National Road No 57 toward Cambodia-Thai border at Psar Prom border pass. In addition, this interconnected road networks will facilitate the traffic of our people in this area to get to all parts along the Cambodia-Thai border, other provinces of the country and to Phnom Penh capital city for working relation, job seeking, businesses, products exchange, trade, industry, education, health, and especially tourism because beside the tourism resorts in Siem Reap and other provinces, there are also attractive tourism resorts for the trips of national and international tourists as well in the northern provinces.

In fact, the construction of this road as well as other roads all over the country can be successful due to the active contribution from our people, local authorities and all kinds of armed forces, especially the support and warm confidence of our people on the policies and implementation of the Royal Government. These supports are the essential impetus to the Royal Government in continuing its historical mission to restore development, protect sovereignty and territorial integrity for our people and nation. Taking this opportunity, on behalf of the Royal Government I would like to express appreciation and deepest gratitude to our countymen, armed forces and civil servants in all ministries-institutions, who have contributed to socio-economic development, especially to make every socio-economic infrastructure development projects a success like today. I would like to continue giving priority to the restoration and development of transport infrastructures such as roads-bridges, railroads, waterway, airways, in order to promote the connectivity of the rural areas to the city and various pre-historical tourism resorts, aiming to promote the flow of tourists and connectivity to the neighboring countries for internal economic and social integration of Cambodia, region and the whole world, as well as to create condusive environment and cooperation along the border and businesses, trade, investment and other jobs creation for our people.

Taking this opportunity, I would like to congratulate the two Chinese companies (CHINA ROAD AND BRIDGE CORPORATION), which has conducted research and implement the project, and (Guangzhou Wanan Construction Supervision Co. Ltd), which is technical controller. I would like the two companies to work hard to implement their duties in order to be able to complete this National Road construction as planned with high quality. Along with that, I would like to thank and appreciate the efforts made by the Exim Bank of China, especially H.E PHAN GUAN XIA and all his Colleagues of the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China, who have cooperated and coordinated to provide fast loan approval so that we can process the construction of bridges in many places as well as for the construction of this National Road 57B today and other bridge construction projects in the future.

Before ending, I would like to once again remind all people who are living along the road to be highly careful in the traffic and transportation of products, and respect the traffic law such as wearing helmet while riding motorbikes, and must drive within the speed limit of 90 km per hour outside the people living area and more than 40 km per hour in the crowded area. At the same time, you have to take further care about dust due to the traffic of machineries along the road during this construction process. After the road is gradually completed, there will be the increase in traffic, and the cars will be of higher speed. If we don’t take care, there will be traffic accidents causing loss of lives and injuries to brothers, sisters and children, which is your hard burden as well as the worry of the Royal Government.

At the end, together with the Ground Breaking Ceremony of the National Road 57B with the length of 176.35 km: Thmor Kol-Borvel-Sampauv Loun-30 Village-Phnom Preuk-Kam Reang-O Dar today, I would like to wish the Venerable Monks, Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, Distinguished National and International Guests, Civil Servants, Teachers and Students, especially His Excellency Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China and his Colleagues, Chinese Experts and Technicians, who have been on mission to the Kingdom of Cambodia, the four gems of Buddhist blessing: Longevity, Nobility, Health and Strength.