As Cambodia launches $36.6bn building drive, China, Japan fight for spoils

Phnom Penh, Cambodia – Cambodia is pushing for an infrastructural renaissance, but it will need some help from its friends abroad to chip away at an estimated price tag of $36.6bn. Since the unopposed ascension last year of Prime Minister Hun Manet – the son of former Prime Minister Hun Sen, the country’s leader of nearly 40 years – his new government of aspiring technocrats has pressed forward with the building campaign, beseeching foreign allies for closer ties and increased investment while assuring the public of big things to come. “I think Cambodia’s government feels it is high time to maximise whatever they can get from the donors,” Chhengpor Aun, a research fellow at Future Forum, a Cambodian public policy think tank, told Al Jazeera. Both are also the only countries to hold Cambodia’s highest diplomatic designation of “comprehensive strategic partnership”, a status Japan gained just last year. “Even if not going to be economically feasible but seems to have good value in terms of its public utility, a lot of externality, this kind of project will be quite legitimate for them to still go back to the old model of borrowing from China with concessional loans, building it and then the government pays back the loan.” Even if not all the projects in the master plan come to pass, those in the national logistics and transportation industry see a lot to like.