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The 60,000-seat Morodok Techo National Stadium in the Cambodian capital of Phnom Penh has been officially inaugurated.
Set to be the centrepiece of Cambodia’s hosting of the 2023 Southeast Asian (SEA) Games, the Chinese Government-funded venue in Phnom Penh’ northern suburbs was opened today with a sports parade, martial arts displays and traditional dances attended by nearly 20,000 people.
Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen and Chinese Ambassador to Cambodia Wang Wentian presided over the three-hour event
Speaking at the ceremony, Prime Minister Hun Sen said the 60,000-seat stadium will be the centerpiece venue for tournaments when Cambodia hosts the SEA Games for the first time in May 2023.
Funded by Chinese grant aid under its Belt and Road Initiative, Prime Minister Hun Sen expressed his gratitude to China for building the venue, saying that it was a great achievement in the country's sports sector.
The stadium is just one of many China-funded achievements in Cambodia, he said, and is “another fruit of the iron-clad friendship between Cambodia and China”.
The project took four years to be completed by the China State Construction Engineering Corporation under China's grant aid.
Quoting the remarks of Chinese State Councillor and Foreign Minister Wang Yi at the handover ceremony of the venue in September this year, the Ambassador Wang said that the stadium will become a vital landmark of the traditional friendship between the two countries with symbolic significance.
Located about 18 kilometres north of the centre of Phnom Penh, the 39.9-metre-tall stadium was built in the shape of a "sailing ship" with both prows 99 meters tall, and is encircled by an ancient Angkor Wat-style moat.
Image credit: Xinhua.
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