The China State Ship-building Corporation (CSSC) here on Wednesday delivered a batch of marine equipments to the Royal Armed Forces of Cambodia (RAFC) to help its navy branch counter crimes like smuggling and drug trafficking.
The handover ceremony was held at the Ream Navy Headquarters in Sihanoukville, the port city in southwest Cambodia near the Gulf of Thailand.
"The high-quality equipments will play an important role in improving the Cambodian navy forces' working efficiency and safeguard the security and integrity of the kingdom's territorial waters," said Cambodia's Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Tea Banh.
Cambodia's navy commander Ong San Kan said that the equipments were delivered on time and will beef up the navy forces' capability to safeguard the country's territorial waters.
"It can enable us to fight drug trafficking, illegal immigration, piracy and terrorism more efficiently," he added.
The equipments, including four 46-meter-long patrol boats, three 20-meter-long patrol boats, one landing ship and one 60-meter-long floating dock, arrived here on Sunday.
Lu Xiaoyan, vice president of the CSSC, said that the vessel construction project was completed after four years' cooperation between the two sides and is expected to become the new blood to help maintain Cambodia's national security.
"We hope that today's delivery will bring us more opportunities to carry out further cooperation with Cambodia in equipment production and maintenance, personnel training as well as spare parts supply," she added.
Zhang Jinfeng, Chinese Ambassador to Cambodia, said that the ship production by the CSSC for Cambodia was initiated in 2004 with preferential loan from the Chinese government and embodied the traditional friendship and deep feeling between the two countries and peoples.
"China will keep on developing its good neighborly ties with Cambodia and help the kingdom gain power for independent development," she added.
The local Cambodian Daily reported on Oct. 27 that the new vessels, worth 60 million U.S. dollars in total, will be deployed along the Thailand Gulf to protect Cambodia's offshore assets.
The Thailand Gulf is situated to the southwest of Cambodia, where the kingdom has a huge interest of marine products and a profitable prediction of oil and natural gas reserves.
Source: Xinhua
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