The governments of Vietnam and the US are calling for higher transparency over a $1.7-billion canal mission that’s being constructed by a Chinese language state-owned agency in southern Cambodia.
The 180-kilometer-long Techo Funan Canal, which is scheduled to start development later this yr, will join the nation’s capital Phnom Penh to the coastal province of Kep, lowing the price of delivery items between the capital and the nation’s solely deep-sea port at Sihanoukville and lowering its reliance on Vietnamese ports. China’s state-owned China Bridge and Street Company landed the deal to develop the canal throughout final yr’s Belt and Street Discussion board in Beijing.
Whereas the Cambodian authorities says that the mission is meant to profit the nation’s economic system by making it much less depending on its japanese neighbor — Prime Minister Hun Manet has described the mission as a method of “respiratory by way of our personal nostril” — the environmental and safety implications of the mission have drawn scrutiny, significantly subsequent door in Vietnam.
In full: https://thediplomat.com/2024/04/1-7-billion-cambodian-canal-project-draws-increasing-scrutiny/
