General

In the joint statement, China and Cambodia agreed to build the "diamond six-sided" cooperation framework of China and Cambodia from the six major areas of politics, production capacity, agriculture, energy, security and humanities, and pointed out the direction for the practical cooperation between China and Cambodia in the next stage.

This year marks the 65th anniversary of the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and Cambodia. According to the Huacheng Import and Export Data Observation, recently, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen was invited to visit China. During the visit, China and Cambodia said that no matter how the international situation changes, China and Cambodia will unswervingly deepen the close "iron" friendship, unswervingly carry out mutually beneficial and win-win practical cooperation, and unswervingly promote the construction of a community with a shared future for mankind.

The visit of Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen to China is not only a part of high-level mutual visits, but also to commemorate the third anniversary of his "retrograde visit to China".

In February 2020, China was in a difficult period to fight against the COVID-19. Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen became the first foreign leader to visit China under the epidemic. Today, Hun Sen has become the first foreign leader to receive after the Chinese Lunar New Year in 2023, releasing a positive signal of bilateral cooperation.

In the joint statement, China and Cambodia agreed to build the "diamond six-sided" cooperation framework of China and Cambodia from the six major areas of politics, production capacity, agriculture, energy, security and humanities, and pointed out the direction for the practical cooperation between China and Cambodia in the next stage.

Strategic docking and capacity cooperation

The two sides agreed to deepen the docking and cooperation between China's "the Belt and Road" initiative and Cambodia's "Four Corners Strategy", jointly guarantee the safety of cooperation projects and enterprise personnel, give full play to the role of China Cambodia production capacity and investment cooperation mechanism, focus on Cambodia's vision of building a multi-functional economic demonstration zone in Sihanoukville Province, and explore the creation of an "industrial development corridor".

In recent years, from the upgrading of bilateral relations to comprehensive strategic partnership of cooperation, to Cambodia becoming the first country to sign an action plan with China to build a community of shared future, and to the entry into force of the China-Cambodia Free Trade Agreement, China-Cambodia bilateral relations have constantly reached a new level.

Cambodia is the earliest participant of the "the Belt and Road" initiative, and also one of the first countries to take the initiative to link its long-term development plan "four corner strategy" with the "the Belt and Road" initiative.

The "four corner strategy", which was put forward by the Cambodian government in 2004, focuses on optimizing administrative management, speeds up agricultural development, strengthens infrastructure construction, attracts more investment and develops human resources. It is highly consistent with the "the Belt and Road" initiative in many fields.

The two countries have achieved docking in many projects, such as the key project of China-Cambodia capacity cooperation, Siem Reap Angkor International Airport, the energy project Sang River Secondary Hydropower Station, and Cambodia's first intercontinental submarine cable project.

Relying on projects such as Sihanouk Port Special Economic Zone and Phnom Penh West Port Expressway, we will attract more powerful Chinese enterprises to increase investment in Cambodia, explore and promote cooperation in supporting transportation facilities, power and optical cables, warehousing and logistics, and optimize the layout of China-Cambodia capacity cooperation.

Sihanouk Port Special Economic Zone is led by China Hongdou Group and jointly developed and constructed by Chinese and Cambodian enterprises, with an overall planning area of 11.13 square kilometers.

Sihanouk Province, where the Special Economic Zone is located, is the third largest economic hub province in Cambodia. According to Cambodia's 2015-2025 Industrial Development Plan and the 2030 development vision of Sihanouk Province formulated by the Royal Government, the province will become a national growth center, a national logistics center and a modern industrial production center.

At present, 175 enterprises from China, Europe and the United States, Southeast Asia and other countries and regions have been introduced into Sihanouk Port Special Economic Zone, accounting for about 60% of the total number of factories in Sihanouk Province. In 2022, the total import and export volume of enterprises in the region will reach 2.493 billion US dollars, up 12% year on year, accounting for 4.8% of the total trade volume of Cambodia, which has injected strong momentum into Cambodia's economic development.

Railway project

The Chinese side supports Cambodia to carry out preliminary work such as railway planning, design and feasibility study, and promote project construction, and support the construction of people's livelihood along the Cambodian railway. The two sides look forward to the early realization of the connection between the Cambodian railway and the China-Laos-Thailand railway.

Cambodia's railway infrastructure is outdated and its operation efficiency is low, which restricts the development of local economy and trade and the interconnection with surrounding areas. To this end, Cambodia has been accelerating the upgrading and reconstruction of the railway in recent years, and hopes to build a high-speed railway as soon as possible.

As early as at the ASEAN Summit in November 2022, Cambodia had discussions with China on the issue of high-speed rail.

On January 23, the Cambodian Minister of Public Works and Transport, Sun Zhantuo, held a meeting with the delegation of China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC) through video to discuss the feasibility study of Phnom Penh - Bobe high-speed railway project.

According to the preliminary survey results, the project has a total length of 382 kilometers, 33 stations in total, and a width of 1.435 meters through Kanla Province, Kampong Qingyang Province and Battambang Province. The project is expected to cost $4 billion, with a construction period of 4 years, and a maximum speed of 160 kilometers per hour after completion.

After completion, the project will become Cambodia's first high-speed railway, promote modern logistics and national economic development, and facilitate personnel and trade exchanges between Cambodia and Thailand.

Clean energy cooperation

The two sides agreed to increase cooperation in clean energy such as hydropower and photovoltaic, and explore green, environmentally friendly, stable and reliable energy cooperation schemes.

Cambodia is rich in water resources, but due to its limited development capacity, it is faced with the problems of insufficient power supply and dependence on imports.

Chinese-funded enterprises have undertaken large-scale hydropower projects in Cambodia, such as Ganzai Hydropower Station, Sanghe Secondary Hydropower Station, Dadai Hydropower Station, and Bodha River Hydropower Station, which effectively alleviated the power tension in Cambodia and provided huge support for local economic development.

According to IRENA statistics, by the end of 2021, Cambodia's installed capacity of renewable energy is 1800MW, including 1330MW of hydropower and 428MW of photovoltaic.

Since the establishment of the first new energy (biomass, photovoltaic, wind energy) development goal in 2016, Cambodia has updated its energy development strategy several times.

In 2020, the Ministry of Energy and Mines of Cambodia issued the 2020 – 2030 Energy Development Plan, clarifying the medium and long-term energy structure transformation and development objectives. By 2030, the total installed capacity of electricity in Cambodia will reach 15.9GW, of which the installed capacity of centralized PV will increase from 296MW to 1.8GW.

In 2022, the Cambodian government issued the "2021 – 2040 Overall Plan for Power Development", which proposed the goal of increasing the installed capacity of solar power generation to 1000 MW by 2030 and further to 3155 MW by 2040. Huacheng Import and Export Data Observation Report.

Infrastructure construction

The two sides agreed to implement the Memorandum of Understanding on the China-Cambodia Development Cooperation Plan (2023 – 2025), promote the construction of roads, reservoirs, sewage treatment, submarine optical cables and other infrastructure, implement rural roads, water supply, schools, medical care and other projects in Cambodia, and support the Cambodian side in improving the people's livelihood.

Since 2004, the Cambodian government has listed the construction and improvement of infrastructure as one of the important tasks of the "Four Corners Strategy" to accelerate the pace of recovery and reconstruction. Chinese enterprises have strong competitiveness in many fields. In 2021, Chinese enterprises signed new contracts in Cambodia with a total amount of 3.299 billion US dollars, mainly involving roads, electricity, housing construction and water conservancy construction.

In October 2022, the key project of the "the Belt and Road" jointly built by China and Cambodia - Golden Harbor Expressway will be officially opened for trial operation. The project is 187.05 km long, two-way and four lane, connecting the capital Phnom Penh and Sihanouk Port, the largest seaport in China. Since then, Cambodia has entered the "highway era".

In November 2022, CRBC and the Cambodian government jointly signed the Framework Agreement for Cambodia Phnom Penh - Paku Expressway Project. The total length of the project is 138 kilometers, which is the second expressway in Cambodia.

On January 11, 2023, Poly Growth signed a contract with the Ministry of Public Works and Transport of the Kingdom of Cambodia to construct the bridge project of National Highway 4, with a total contract amount of about 240 million yuan. The completion of the project will promote Cambodia's international trade business and economic growth, and benefit people's well-being.

In addition, China has assisted in the construction of Cambodia's first cement plant, thermal power plant and the first modern large-scale stadium - Cambodia National Stadium.

In addition to government grants, Cambodia's infrastructure construction funds are mainly from assistance and low-interest loans and corporate BOT investment from China, Japan, South Korea, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and other countries and institutions.

China is the largest donor to Cambodia. As of 2019, Cambodia has obtained 2.865 billion US dollars of infrastructure loans from China, accounting for 90% of the total value of loans provided by foreign countries.

Agricultural economic and trade cooperation

The two sides agreed to explore the building of a "fish and rice corridor" centered on the northwest of Cambodia and the Tonle Sap Lake region, and to develop modern ecological agriculture near the lake Make good use of the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement and the China-Cambodia Free Trade Agreement, promote the negotiation of the China-ASEAN Free Trade Area Version 3.0, and promote bilateral trade to a new high.

Agriculture is one of the important topics of China-Cambodia cooperation and one of the important areas of concern of Cambodia's "Four Corners Strategy". In recent years, China and Cambodia have actively promoted the export of Cambodian pepper, longan and wild aquatic products to China. Since the implementation of the China-Cambodia Free Trade Agreement and RCEP in January last year, the policy dividend has been continuously released.

In April 2022, the second meeting of the Steering Committee of China-Cambodia Agricultural Cooperation was held. The meeting summarized the achievements of bilateral agricultural cooperation and pointed out the direction for the next stage of cooperation.

In November 2022, Chinese Minister of Agriculture and Rural Affairs Tang Renjian and Cambodian Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Deng Dina met and signed important cooperation documents. Premier Li Keqiang visited Cambodia and witnessed the signing of 18 cooperation documents with Hun Sen, including 5 cooperation documents in agriculture.

In 2022, the trade volume between China and Cambodia reached US $16.02 billion, an increase of 17.5% year on year and a new record. China has become Cambodia's largest trading partner for 11 consecutive years. As the economies of the two countries enter the post-epidemic recovery stage, agricultural and economic and trade cooperation will continue to be the highlight of China-Cambodia cooperation.