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Address at the Official Inauguration of the 42.88 Km
Segment of the National Road No. 1 from Korki to Neak Leung Ferry Port and the
Ground Breaking of the Construction of the 9.10 Km Segment from Veal Sbov to
Korki
January 5th, 2010
Your Venerable Monks,
Excellencies, Members of the Senate, Members of Parliament,
and Members of the Royal Government,
Your Excellency Masafumi KUROKI, Ambassador of Japan to the
Kingdom of Cambodia,
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, Distinguished National and
International Guests,
Dear Compatriots, Civil Servants, Teachers and Students!
Today it is my pleasure to be here in the inauguration ceremony
of the 42.88 km segment of the national road No. 1 from Korki – Kien Svay to Western Neak Leung Ferry Port and groundbreaking ceremony of the
construction of segment from Veal Sbov to Korki – Kien Svay, which is
financed by the grant from the Government of Japan. Taking this great
opportunity, on behalf of the Royal Government of Cambodia and its people, I
would like to convey my profound gratitude, through H.E. Masafumi KUROKI, to the
Government of Japan, the biggest donor and development partner of Cambodia, for
providing vast technical and financial support (both grants and concessional
loans) continuously to help Cambodia rebuild peace and national unification and
restore and develop physical infrastructure and human resources, especially
international port and roads – bridges across the country to accelerate growth
and poverty reduction. The Government and people of Japan have provided Cambodia
with enormous grants to build major roads and bridges, including the Cambodia-Japan Friendship Bridge at Chruoy Changvar, a segment of the
national road No. 6 from Roluos to Siem Reap, national roads No. 6A and No. 7
ending at Thnol Torteung, especially Kizuna Bridge, the first-ever bridge
crossing the Mekong River at Tonle Bet, Kampong Cham and two more bridges on the
national road No. 1 which was inaugurated on December 19, 2006. During that
time, the Government of Japan approved additional grants for the 3rd phase of the Phnom Penh – Neak Leung national road No. 1 development project to
broaden its width to accommodate regional transport and reduce traffic jam. In
the near future, it will finance the construction of Neak Leung Bridge to
increase the maximum potential of the national road No. 1 to fulfill its role as
a GMS Highway and Asia Highway No. 1.
The national road No. 1 from Phnom Penh to Neak Leung will be a
significant contributor to Cambodia’s socio-economic development as the highway
is built over the low land along the Mekong River which is flooded every year
and located close to Phnom Penh, with high population density, large factories
and richness of farmed plants. Given this situation, the construction of this
highway and bridges do not only facilitate transport, but also act as a
component of the irrigation system and address traffic problems as well as
poverty issues. The elevated highway can act as a dike, while the construction
of bridges along this highway also takes into account the force of water current
to prevent the highway’s cut off during flooding season, in particular, the
construction of bridges at Km No. 42+800 and No. 47+939 will have three
strategic roles including the facilitation of regional transport, irrigation
system for farmed plants along the highway, and flood gate for preventing flood
on southern part of the highway and highway’s cut off, which is considered as
national and international strategic network. Moreover, the draining of water
up and down through this irrigation bridge also brings about the alluvial soil
and fisheries resources to serve the domestic market and can also be exported to
the foreign countries as well. The construction to improve National Road No.01
from Phnom Penh to Neak Leung today is the enhancement of vessel efficiency,
which supports and sustains Cambodian socio-economic development to be highly
competent and be able to ensure the busy transportation in the region, which can
actually bring about the national budget revenue and create jobs and
opportunities for Cambodian people to increase income to support the families
and further improve the education and welfare. In particular, this National
Road significantly contributes to release the traffic congestion, which is more
serious from Phnom Penh to Vietnam-Cambodia border of Barvet and Prey Veng due
to the increase of all kinds of vehicles and busy activities of the cross border
trade as well as the boom of the factories and enterprises. Furthermore, the
development project of the National Road No.01 from Phnom Penh to Neak Leung is
the timely response to the implementation of the bilateral agreement on
transportation between Cambodia and Vietnam, in which after the complete
construction, this National Road will become a mean of primary potential to meet
the necessary requirement in contributing to accelerate economic growth and
national development as a whole through national, regional and international
integration.
Realizing
the significant role of the bridges and roads as mentioned above, on behalf of
the Royal Government, I still set construction and development of infrastructure
of land transport, sea route and railway as prioritized policy, which is to be
further paid attention and most actively promoted; and the Royal Government is
still committed to putting further efforts in overcoming to achieve success in
implementing the Rectangular Strategy in order to speed up economic
growth and social development aiming to reduce poverty of the people nation wide
because bridges are hope and necessary means to promote the engine of
economic growth through facilitating the traffic of transportation network.
If there are good roads and bridges, people can transport to exchange products
in greater quantity with good quality and cheap price to the markets. Good
roads and bridges are the excellent means, which can attract investment from all
circles to invest in all sectors such as industries, agriculture and tourism,
which can create a lot of jobs, which is easier for the people to generate
income to support their families.
In order to maintain
and promote high pride and efficiency of achievements that we jointly hard
earned and having firm optimism about bright Cambodian future, I would like to
appeal to the members of the Royal Government, local authorities of all levels,
and the management and officials of Ministry of Public Works and Transport to
further cooperate in fulfilling duties to link and maintain transportation
network with sustainability nation-wide and at all regions, near and far, and to
connect to neighboring countries. At the same time, contribution, support and
comprehension of the people, particularly for solution for resettlement impact
which is indispensible factor for promotion of construction and maintenance of
road-bridge and to ensure productivity, quality and safety of transportation in
order to promote national and private economic growth as well as to maintain
state and private property, especially lives of our people by increasing
participation to maintain road-bridge. On behalf of the Royal Government, I
would like to request that when you drive happily on nice road, please pay great
attention to two important things (1) prevent overweight freighting which severely and quickly damage road-bridge that
we hard constructed (2) strictly obey traffic code in order to reduce possibility of traffic accident
which trigger tragedy and social burden due to loss of lives or disability of
supportive person or our beloved.
Along with
that, on behalf of the Royal Government and people of Cambodia, I would like to
convey gratitude to all government and people of friend countries and
development partners, especially Japan, for constantly providing all kinds of
supports, including encouragement, materials and fund for the cause of national
solidarity, rehabilitation, and socio-economic development of Cambodia through
improvement and construction of transport infrastructure which is key to
economic growth and poverty reduction of Cambodian people.
I would like
to congratulate and admire effort made by Katahira Company of Japan for technical inspection and Obayashi Company who is project implementer with quality and high international standard. Also, I
would like to congratulate Daiho Corporation and
Ly Chhuong Construction Import Export who are to undertake construction of National Road No. 1 Phase 3 for which I
strongly believe that Daiho Corporation will construct this road timely with quality like Siem Reap- Roluos link and technical inspecting company, Katahira , will act as an efficient technical consultant.
At the end, I
would like to wish venerable monks, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, national
and international guests, government officials, teachers, students the 4 gems of
Buddhist blessings; Longevity, Nobility, Health and Strength. May I declare the
Inauguration of partial link of National Road No. 1 stretching over 42.77
kilometers from the west of Neak Leung ferry port and the Opening of Construction Site linking from Korki to Veal Sbov!
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