Ratanakkiri Airport renovation draws slowly closer: officials

Source: The Phnom Penh Post Written by SAM RITH

Tuesday, 18 November 2008

AIRPORT UPGRADE The renovated Ratanakkiri Airport is to include a runway that has been extended 200 metres to 1,500 metres, improved safety equipment and a new terminal, transforming the facility from a dilapidated provincial airstrip to something more appealing. Officials claim the airport is key to the province's future as a tourism hotspot, but soon-to-be evicted households need to be compensated RATANAKKIRI provincial officials expect more tourists to take domestic flights to the isolated province once renovations to the provincial airport are completed, but determining compensation for those evicted as a result of the airport's expansion poses one last hurdle before construction can begin. With Cambodia's recent promotion of Ratanakkiri as an ecotourism hotspot, the airport's reopening can't come soon enough. "Ratanakkiri is different from other provinces because it is the ecotourism province. But right now, it takes a long time to travel to Ratanakkiri province by roads," said Sinn Chan Sereyvutha, who is managing the Ratanakkiri Airport upgrade on behalf of the State Secretariat of Civil Aviation. We have met with two issues: A LACK OF MONEY AND THE ... AFFECTED FAMILIES.

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