A contentious US$ 1.7 billion canal project aimed at creating a new link between the Mekong River and the sea was officially launched on Monday ( Aug 5 ) by Cambodia’s prime minister Hun Manet.
At a release occasion in Prek Takeo, south of the money Phnom Penh, Manet called the 180km task “historic”, as lights shot into the air and drum sounded.
” We must create this river at all costs”, he said.
When completed, the Funan Techo Canal will move from a position on the Mekong River, about an hour’s drive south of Phnom Penh, to the Gulf of Thailand.
However, there is still uncertainty surrounding the project’s major goal, whether it will be for delivery or water, and how it will affect the flow of the Mekong, one of the longest rivers in the world.
Conservationists have long warned that the valley, which supports up to a third of the country’s freshwater fish get and half of Vietnam’s grain production, is at threat from infrastructure projects, waste, sand mine and climate change.
Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam and Thailand are members to the 1995 Mekong River Agreement, which governs the circulation of the river’s tools.
Vietnam requests more details about the job despite Cambodia’s notification to the Mekong River Commission about its river programs.