An overview of Chinese-invested Phnom Penh - Sihanoukville Expressway. (PHOTO: XINHUA)

Edited by LIN Yuchen

China and Cambodia have released a joint statement on building a China-Cambodia community with a shared future in the new era, following Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen's official visit to China.

In the statement of February 11, both sides spoke highly of Sino-Cambodian ironclad friendship, which has been carefully nurtured by the leaders of the elder generation of both countries and has been constantly growing from strength to strength in the last 65 years, since the establishment of diplomatic ties.

The friendship can trace its roots back to multiple cooperative efforts of the two nations, especially in such fields as poverty alleviation, economic cooperation and trade, as well as the joint efforts in the Belt and Road Initiative.

Commencing in January, 2021, a China-Cambodia demonstration project of poverty alleviation granted a funding budget of 10 million RMB to Doung, a village in south Cambodia, to construct local infrastructures. All 125 households in the village now have access to electricity. Clean water production stations, rural concrete roads, and solar power generation facilities were also successfully constructed.

China has built 4,000 km roads and eight bridges cross the Mekong River in Cambodia, as well as installing 20,000 km optical cables, In 2022, the total import and export revenue of Chinese-invested Sihanoukville Special Economic Zone was nearly 2.5 billion USD, an increase of 12 percent year-on-year. In addition, around 30,000 jobs have been created.

Statistics show that trade volume between the two countries hit a record high in 2022, expanding 17.5 percent year-on-year to 16.02 billion USD.

In the same year, the Cambodian government approved 186 new investment projects with an agreed investment amount of 4.032 billion USD, of which China's investment accounted for 42 percent, making it the largest source of investment in Cambodia.

Since the China-Cambodia free trade agreement and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership came into effect in January, 2022, the liberalization and facilitation of trade and investment between both countries have been strengthened, said Shu Jueting, spokesperson of the Ministry of Commerce.