The Council for the Development of Cambodia (CDC) and the Ministry of Public Works and Transport (MPWT) yesterday held a meeting to review the process of transport and logistics master plan as the Royal Government of Cambodia (RGC) seeks an investment capital of nearly $40 billion to construct 174 projects aimed at developing a connected infrastructure across the Kingdom.

The fourth meeting of the Comprehensive Intermodal Transport and Logistics System Master Plan 2023-2033 (CITLS) was chaired over by Sun Chanthol, Deputy Prime Minister and First Vice-Chairman of CDC along with Peng Ponea, Minister of MPWT in the presence of Cham Nimul, Minister of Commerce (MoC), Jonh Leber, Senior Investment Officer of the Public-Private Partnerships (PPP) International Finance Corporation and Eric Chan, Head of Corporation Development of YCH Group.

Chanthol highlighted the efforts of former Prime Minister Hun Sen to develop this master plan with a great vision to create an internal transportation system, making it possible to launch in August last year. Also, he appreciated Aun Pornmoniroth, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Finance (MEF), who led the working group in the past three meetings since the project was implemented.

Based on the Logistics Performance Index (LPI) issued by World Bank, Cambodia ranked 98th in 2018 but was dropped to 115th, making the country stand on par with Laos – ranked 82 in 2018.

Compared to other neighbouring countries, Thailand has dropped from ranked 32 to 34 while Vietnam has moved out from 39 to 43.

The Deputy Prime Minister emphasised that the shifting up of LPI ranking for most ASEAN countries doesn’t mean that the governments are not improving the transportation and logistics infrastructure but it is more on the competition in developing of road network over the last five years.

“We might have the Phnom Penh-Sihanoukville Expressway (PPSE) and many upcoming projects including PP-Bavet Expressway, Phnom-Penh-Siem Reap-Poipet Expressway and Funan Techo canal, but other countries in the region are doing even more than us, especially the Philippines as they signed tonnes of development projects, moving from 60 to 43,” he added.

Ponea briefed the background of the CITSL which has gone through three stages to achieve today’s success and the initiative of the project came from the collaboration between the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), the World Bank and MPWT to create ‘Logistic Master Plan’ in 2018.

Two years later, MPWT received other support from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and JICA to establish the ‘Interim Master Plan on Intermodal Transport Connectivity and Logistics System Master Plan’ which included five integrated plans such land transport, railway, waterway, ports, and logistics. The plan was approved by the National Logistics Council in January 2020, he added.

He said that in 2023, the cooperation between the Supreme National Economic Council, the China International Engineering Construction Corporation (CIECC) and MPWT, has led to the creation of the CITLS master plan.

The MPWT Minister stressed that that on August 2 last year, the CITLS master plan was acknowledged by RGC and officially allowed to be implemented with two additional plans including the improvement of the airway and intermediate transport a total of 174 projects for both soft and hard infrastructures through an investment capital of approximately $36.6 billion for the next decade.

Chhieng Pich, Director General of the General Department of Logistics Council of MPWT said the master plan was established with a vision to continue improving and developing the transportation and logistics system, focusing on the promotion of physical and non-physical infrastructure.

Our target is set towards the development of high-efficiency transit systems across the country and to member countries in the region as well which will strongly contribute to boosting the national economic growth as well as responding to the needs of a sustainable and socio-economic society, he added.

• Tags: CDC, MPWT