Phnom Penh Sihanoukville Expressway Project Progress in 2021

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Update: Currently, as of 30 August 2022, 95% of the highway is completed.

The $2 billion USD express highway project that connects Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville is being developed as planned and is expected to be completed in 2022 according to the Ministry of Public Works and Transport, Cambodia.

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Sihanoukville Phnom Penh highway latest video

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Phnom Penh Sihanoukville Express Highway Aerial Video

Table of Contents

The developer company

China Road and Bridge Corporation (CRBC) has many infrastructure and road projects in Cambodia as well as many other developing countries. CRBC is also building NR6 between Siem Reap and Kampong Thom, NR 11, NR 55, NR 56, and many more road and bridge infrastructure projects in Cambodia.⁽¹⁾

CRBC is one of the biggest engineering and construction firms in the world. It operates with more than 50 branches and offices throughout Asia, Africa, Europe, and America. CRBC has designed and constructed greenfield as well as brownfield infrastructure projects in developing countries. Their slogan is “Build roads and bridges, make contributions to society, put employees first, and strive for excellence.”⁽²⁾

Information about the express highway

The project Expressway Phnom Penh-Sihanoukville (Phnom Penh-Sihanoukville Express Highway a.k.a. E4) has a total length of about 190,633 meters. The express highway will have a total of 89 bridges, 4 rest stops, and 3 gas stations. The expressway will be covered with AC (asphalt concrete) asphalt and there will be a 57 km long safety insulation wall. The hedge will be set in the middle of the road. There will be zinc-coated steel fences erected on both sides of the road. The expressway will have 4 lanes and have a width of 24 meters in width. The investment of the project is being realized by the form of Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT).⁽³⁾

The project is going on as scheduled and it has created 3500 jobs until now.⁽⁴⁾

Ministry of Public Works and Transport has confirmed that the construction of the country’s first-ever expressway will complete as⁽⁵⁾ or before planned and may be operating from the second half of 2022 despite the COVID-19 pandemic. Currently, as of 30 August 2022, 95% of the highway has been completed (as of 06 August 2021, 53% of the highway had been completed and as of January 2021, 32% of the highway had been completed).

Impact of the expressway on real estate and tourism

The Phnom Penh Sihanoukville express highway will allow trips from Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville to be completed in under 2 hours. This will enable significantly more people to visit Sihanoukville, Ream and islands (i.e., Koh Rong, Koh Rong Samloem, Koh Puos), the comfortable trip between to cities as currently, Phnom Penh airport has the biggest number of arrivals. More tourists will lead to more revenue and this will lead to the rents rising accordingly.

Since the property value is directly proportional to the income and rental value, the property; namely, land, residential, commercial property prices as well as industrial property prices will rise up as well. It will also enable transportation of industrial products and using Sihanoukville port as a new ASEAN hub to deliver products to Asia, Europe, and Africa. Both comfortable trips and an increase in the number of delivered goods will lead to a skyrocketing of real estate prices in Sihanoukville and in the islands.