With an eye to transforming Cambodia into a Southeast Asian travel and cargo hub, a new US$2.3 billion airport – developed by a venture affiliated with one of the country’s wealthiest men – was opened at a grand ceremony near Phnom Penh, where officials and business leaders praised the project for enhancing regional connectivity and deepening links with Hong Kong and mainland China.
Techo International Airport (TIA), which has replaced the Cambodian capital’s previous facility, has been forecast by PwC to accommodate 5.3 million passengers in the remainder of the year.
The professional services firm has also projected full annual capacity to reach 10.1 million and 15 million passengers by 2030 and 2040, respectively, as the airport enters into new phases of development.
Its operator, Cambodia Airport Investment, is 90 per cent owned by Overseas Cambodian Investment Corporation (OCIC), a conglomerate founded by tycoon Pung Kheav Se. The remaining 10 per cent is owned by the Cambodian government’s State Secretariat of Civil Aviation.
Monday’s opening ceremony was attended by over 1,000 politicians, businessmen and other luminaries. In his address, Pung said the new airport is not a singular project, but rather one node in an overarching strategy to make Cambodia a vital activity centre in the region, adding he envisions the airport as part of a long-term economic corridor connecting the Southeast Asian country to regional supply chains and global air routes.
“The plan is to construct a new 10km (6.21 miles) waterway with a total investment of US$100 million, from Boeng Cheung Loung lake south of TIA ... all the way to Kep City, Cambodia’s seaport,” Pung said. “This will provide TIA a competitive edge to be a transport hub by air, land and sea.”
Addressing the financing of the new airport, he said the investment was primarily funded internally through OCIC and also via the issuance of bonds to local banks and financial institutions.
Pung, who is of Chinese Teochew descent, returned to Cambodia from Canada in the early 1990s. He founded what would become Canadia Bank in 1991 and launched OCIC in 2000, a massive concern spanning real estate, infrastructure, urban planning and other sectors.
“We started this project around 2018,” said airport CEO Charles Vann. “The government finally approved it by the end of 2019, then we had the groundbreaking ceremony, and the project was kicked off in 2020.”
Vann noted TIA will undergo two more phases of development in the long term, with the first phase being the airport’s current operating state.
The airport has already been a boon to Hong Kong, with the city’s flag carrier Cathay Pacific choosing TIA as a parking site for 13 of its aircraft amid the heavy wind and rain of last month’s Super Typhoon Rasaga.
Former Hong Kong chief executive Leung Chun-ying – now a vice-chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference, mainland China’s top political advisory body – said at the ceremony the project underscored the city’s distinctive advantages in connecting Cambodia to the rest of China.
“Hong Kong will continue serving as a bridge, encouraging more enterprises from the Chinese mainland and Hong Kong to take part in Cambodia’s economic growth, particularly in transport infrastructure, smart urban development and sustainable initiatives, thereby strengthening Cambodia’s connectivity both regionally and globally.”
Chinese state companies have also taken part in the airport’s construction, with the Aviation Industry Corporation of China consulting on the building process and a subsidiary of China State Construction Engineering serving as the terminal’s main contractor.
The airport’s opening comes amid a rise in tourism between Cambodia and China, with a direct route added last month between Phnom Penh and Quanzhou in China’s southeastern province of Fujian. Along with Hong Kong, other Chinese cities with nonstop flights to the Cambodian capital include Shenzhen, Guangzhou, Shanghai and Beijing.
Cambodia’s State Secretariat of Civil Aviation said on Tuesday that the country has recorded 5.1 million international air passengers in the first nine months of 2025, an increase of 14 per cent year on year. - SOUTH CHINA MORNING POST
