The Belt and Road Initiative: 10 years on

A look into China’s ambitious global infrastructure strategy and its impact in South-east Asia.

PHNOM PENH – The new, windswept highway linking Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville 190km away would not look out of place anywhere else in the world. There are toll booths with electronic signboards, rest stops with cafes, and signs reminding motorists not to drive slower than 60kmh.

Except for one thing: There are few large vehicles to be seen.

Cambodia’s first expressway, built and operated by the Chinese state-owned China Road and Bridge Corporation, was meant to halve the trucking time from the capital to the kingdom’s most important port.

But truckers have largely avoided the road, turned off by the US$60 (S$81) one-way toll charged by the Chinese operators and even higher towing fees should their vehicles break down along the way.

Instead, tourists, business owners and other travellers in passenger cars have become main users of the US$2 billion expressway.

A toll booth along the Phnom Penh-Sihanoukville Expressway. ST PHOTO: TAN HUI YEE

“One project cannot make everyone happy,” Mr Long Dimanche, deputy governor of Preah Sihanouk province where Sihanoukville is located, told The Straits Times in July.

“We had initially planned it for trucks, but we cannot force them to use the expressway,” he said. “Yet, it has helped boost domestic tourism. With this expressway, Phnom Penh now has a beach.”