Cambodia is expanding its container port industry amid plans to raise private funding for a US$300 million expansion of the Sihanoukville Autonomous Port (SAP) starting in 2017, as well as build a new multipurpose terminal at SAP with Japanese financing that will raise handling capacity to 700,000 TEU, up from 500,000 TEU at present.

The Japan International Cooperation Agency has provided a $74 million soft loan to build the new multipurpose terminal at SAP, which will see the draft deepened from 8.5 to 13.5 metres and the equipping of special facilities to handle oil and agricultural shipments by its completion in 2018, reports the Phnom Penh Post.

President of the Cambodia Freight Forwarders Association (CAMFFA), Sin Chanthy, said the government's plan to expand SAP will cut the cost of handling import and export shipments. He said that once the expansion of Sihanoukville's port is finished "we'll realise huge benefits, especially in our ability to compete on cost for both imports and exports?with international markets.

The plan calls for the construction on reclaimed land of a new 350-metre large container port, comprising a terminal, container yard, rail terminal, customs and administrative buildings.

With a draft of 14.5 metres, the new container berths and storage yard will add one million TEU of capacity upon completion in 2022, effectively tripling SAP's current capacity.

Said Transport and Public Works Ministry spokesman Va Sim Soriya: "Currently we are only able to handle small ships, so we need to transfer cargo shipments onto big ships at neighbouring ports, which costs a lot."

Mr Chanthy, whose own logistics company regularly uses Sihanoukville's port, said the port expansion projects will free up the bottlenecks that result in costly shipping delays. "The existing terminal is constrictive,?he said. "Space is limited and we cannot just receive incoming ships whenever we want. Ships have to wait out at sea for the next available berth.