Passenger flights began on Tuesday at a $2 billion Chinese-built airport near Phnom Penh that Cambodian officials hope will boost the country’s sagging tourism industry.

The inaugural flight, an Air Cambodia plane arriving from China, was welcomed with streams of water from fire trucks.

Sitting about 20 kilometers, or 12 miles, outside the Cambodian capital, the three-runway, 10-square-mile Techo International Airport was jointly funded by the Cambodian government and the privately owned Overseas Cambodian Investment Corporation, officials say. It was designed by Britain’s Foster + Partners and built by China’s state-owned China Construction Third Engineering Bureau Group Co.

It replaces the nearly 70-year-old Phnom Penh International Airport, which has just one runway. The new airport will be able to handle up to 13 million passengers a year, officials say; the old airport saw nearly 5 million passengers in 2024.

See Also: CM Stalin Hails Diaspora as Ambassadors of TN at London Summit

“Techo,” which means “powerful” in the Khmer language, is an honorific given to top military commanders and former Prime Minister Hun Sen.

Clearing land for the airport required around 2,000 households to be evicted or face eviction, the Sahmakum Teang Tnaut NGO reported this week, according to Agence France-Presse. A civil aviation official told AFP that they could not confirm the number of local residents affected, but said such disputes were “almost resolved.”

The opening comes two years after the debut of a $1.1 billion airport for Siem Reap, near the famed Angkor temples, the country’s most popular tourist attraction. A Chinese-owned company was given the rights to that airport for 55 years.

(RFA/NS)

Also Read: