Transport infrastructure and facilities

A digital picture of Techo International airport, taken from OCIC website.

Airports and air travel 

As of 2024, Cambodia has three international airports locating in Phnom Penh (Phnom Penh International Airport), Siem Reap (SAI) and Sihanoukville, although the last has significantly fewer international flights than the first two. There are also 4 domestic airports in different operating status.¹ Dara Sakor International Airport in Koh Kong province is in the process of opening and has its first test flights and domestic services in august 2024 and will be made available for international flights in late 2024 or early 2025.² Battambang Airport was closed in 1991 but is being upgraded to handle larger flights.³ Most of Stung Treng Airport was closed by 2003 with only helicopter helipads being used.⁴ There are plans to expand the airport but there is still the need to find the funding for this project. Kampong Chhnang Airport was planned to be upgraded but it was postponed by 2005. There are also many other domestic airports that are in different stages of progress in the planning process or just used as a public landing area. These airports are listed below or can be accessed through our interactive map:

• Koh Rong
• Bavet (Bavet City)
• Poi Pet (Kon Damrey)
• New Preah Vihear (Sra Eam)
• New Modulkiri (ORANG)
• New Rattanakiri (Kalay)
• Krakor Airport
• Kampong Cham
• Kampot Airport
• Kratie Airport

The map of airport in Cambodia

Before COVID-19, the number of travellers were steadily rising with more than 4 million passengers in both Phnom Penh airport and Siem Reap airport and over 10 million over the entire country.⁵ The COVID-19 pandemic led to a sharp decrease in the number of passengers. The pre-pandemic level of passengers has not returned with “only” 5 million but there is a strong increase of passengers after the recovery period.⁶

Cambodia´s airports accept 31 different airlines for both domestic and international flights.⁷ 7 out of these are Cambodian airlines which are:

• Air Cambodia, previously Cambodia Angkor Air (The national flag carrier)
• Sky Angkor Airlines
• Bassaka Air
• JC (Cambodia) International Airlines
• Lanmei Airlines
• Cambodia Airways
• Prince International Airlines⁸

Rail 

Cambodia has two main railway lines—the North line of 385 km connecting Phnom Penh to Poipet on the Thai border via Pursat and Battambang with 50 stations, and the South line, consisting a 257 km line from Phnom Penh to Sihanoukville with 28 stations. In the last few decades, railway usage in Cambodia went through a series of status change. In 1970, railway usage was peaked, mainly for travel and fridge transport,⁹ but due to prolonged conflict and decades of neglect left it in a poor state. Rail services began again in the 1980s, however, the service had postponed in 2008 and would not reopen until the mid-2010s. The railway system was shut down again during the COVID-19 pandemic and finally reopened in October 2022.¹⁰

Railway line in Cambodia

In 2006, a US$143 million rehabilitation project was launched by the Cambodian government with the support of several external funders. The South line project was completed and opened to freight operations in August 2013.¹¹ In the early 2016, the main usage is to transport fuel, coal, cement and container shipments, and passenger services began in that same year. In 2019, the North line was opened for freight trains. Most of its transportation is containers and fuel which amounting to 90% of the composition. While the south line mostly transports containers, the North line is mostly for fuel transportation.¹²

Both lines had high rates of growth in freight service after their reopening. However, between 2019 and 2021 the South line had a decline in its total tonnage from 796,428 to 727,086 tons. The North line has risen from 50,149 tons to 289,381 tons during the same period. The only operating railway were Royal Railway have 18 operational locomotives with 300 wagons operating on the Cambodian railways. Between 2019 and 2022, the use of the north line rail service has risen from 2,214 to 30,679 passenger while the demand on the South line was also increase that saw the rise of passengers from 19,934 to 41,813.¹³

Roads and bridges 

As of 2022, Cambodia’s road network is approximately 67 902.19 kilometers long. Most of these roads are rural roads added up to 47,919.01 kilometrers equal to around 70.8% of the country’s total road length. The second largest are the provincial roads (PR) classified with triple and quadruple digit (P3-4) which is used to differentiate various type of roads. The provincial roads are the basic network of roads inside of the provinces that connects the provincial capitals and the district centers.¹⁴ The provincial roads are 12,380.04 kilometers (18.3%) long. Both the single and double digit national roads (NR) are different as the single digit national roads (N1) connect to bordering countries and is used in the international highway system. The double digit national roads (N2) are the more general connection roads between the different provinces.¹⁵ Their combined length  are 7,416.09 kilometers long (11.3%) on which for the single digit national road are around 2,254.99 kilometers long and double digit road are approximately 5,161.10 kilometers long. The last road type is the expressway. There is only one expressway (E4) which is 187,05 kilometers long (0.3%) connecting Phnom Penh to Preah Sihanouk province.¹⁶

Cambodia runs three main international roads that are all in the Asian highway system (AH). They are AH1, AH11 and AH21. The AH1 uses the NR5 and NR1 for a total of 574.30 kilometers connecting to Vietnam. The AH11 uses NR4, NR6 and NR7 for a total of 750.03 kilometers connecting to Laos. Lastly, The AH21 use NR6, NR64, NR62, NR9, NR7 and NR78 for a combined range of 511.90 kilometers. They are all connected to the southern corridor in the Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS).¹⁷

In term of bridge, there is a total of 4,347 bridges in the country on which 1,941 (44.65%) of them connected to rural roads, 1,183 (27.21%) connected to provincial road, 752 (17.30%) to double digit road and 471 (10.84%) bridges connected to single digit road. The bridges for the larger roads like the national roads are in general longer than the smaller sized roads, the length is therefore in total very similar between the different categories of roads.¹⁸

Waterways and ports 

Cambodia has 443 km of coastline and a total of 1750 km of waterways.¹⁹ The only deep seaport is the Sihanoukville Autonomous Port (PAS) which is also the largest international port in Cambodia. In 2023, the port took 7,893,157 tons of goods which has increased by 62% or 6.2% per year since 2013. Between 2017 and 2019, PAS has maintained high growth rate in gross throughput but has slowed down drastically during the pandemic (increase of 25% annually) and have just started to increase rapidly with a growth rate of 12.71% between 2022 and 2023. The rise of twenty-foot equivalent units (TEU) which is a measurement unit on containers, rose from 286 450 units to 797,778, equivalent to 179%.²⁰ It is also the only Cambodia port in the Container Port Performance Index (CPPI). In 2023, it was ranked 168 which is an improvement from 2021, 230th place. According to the index, there is 16 other ports in ASEAN member states that outperforms PAS.²¹

The majority of cargo (74%) in 2023 is imported goods with a total tonnage of 5,842,989. The exported goods are in a smaller quantity with “only” 2,050,168 tons of cargo. The export cargo has increased by a higher percentage compared to imported cargo with 14.76% compared to 12.28% since 2021. But when it comes to TEU the numbers are similar with 402,622 units being imported while 395 145 units being exported.²²

In 2017, a loan agreement was signed between PAS and Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) to develop a new terminal for the port. It has 350m in length and 14.5m in depth and able to take on 1.25 million TEUs in total. The port is much larger than the existing ports that can take on 800 000 capacity. The construction was meant to be finished by 2023 but due to the global COVID-19 pandemic the construction was delayed, and the new expected time of operation is 2027.²³

The second largest port is the Phnom Penh Autonomous Port (PPAP) run by the Ministry of Public Works and Transport (MPWT) and Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF). The port is reliant on Vietnamese ports to be able to function in large–scale international trade due to the deep-sea port facilities of Vietnamese ports like Cai Mep. This reliance is hoped to be counteracted by building the Funan-Techo canal a 180 km long canal which will connect Phnom Penh to the ocean and hoped to be able to increase the traffic to the port. The canal is expected to raise significant revenue, reduce costs for transportation and will be able to handle two-way traffic. ²⁴  The Mekong does have a size constraint which means that boats longer than 110 meters can’t cross and that during low tide it supports only 3000 DWT and high tide 4000 DWT. The main exports out of PPAP are garments at 65% and thereafter electronic products at 21%. The main import at the port is construction materials at 43% with household equipment at 12%, garment raw materials at 11% and food and beverages at 10% being the other most imported items. The exports from the ports go mostly to countries in Asia with small portions going far to Europe or America.²⁵

Related to Transport infrastructure and facilities

• Infrastructure
• Transport and shipping policy and administration