May 5, 2023
PHNOM PENH – Cambodia and a Chinese corporation plan to establish cooperation in the clean water sector, in both large urban projects and smaller-scale ones that will serve remote rural areas.
Cham Prasidh, Minister of Industry, Science, Technology and Innovation, met with a delegation from the China Railway 11 Bureau Group Corporation, which has been in operation for more than 70 years.
“Cambodia is in need of the clean water development to achieve its 2025 sustainable development goal of providing clean water to 100 per cent of people in urban areas and its wider 2030 goal of supplying the entire population,” said Prasidh.
He also requested that the company examine the feasibility of supplying to people to the east of the Mekong River, as many of them are using water from underground reservoirs that are contaminated by chemicals from the extensive US bombing campaigns of the late 1960s and early 1970s.
“A project of this scale will require extensive cooperation between the government and its development partners, or a Chinese grant and a large Chinese corporation,” he explained.
He also requested that the corporation examine the possibility of installing small-scale filtration plants near several islands which do not have clean water sources, and of potentially employing salt-water filtration technology along the coast.
The ministry quoted Liu Jiang, head of the Chinese delegation, as expressing his willingness to cooperate with the Kingdom in order for it to meet its development goals.
“In the near future, we will dispatch a team to study investment opportunities and cooperation. A memorandum of understanding will pave the way for the successful implementation several projects which will be based on the principle of mutual benefits and long-term friendship,” it reported him as saying.