Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation Prak Sokhonn on June 6 led a senior delegation taking a special Cambodia Airways flight to the ASEAN-China Special Foreign Ministers’ Meeting and the 6th Mekong-Lancang Cooperation Foreign Ministers’ Meeting – both scheduled to be held on June 7-8 in the western Chinese city of Chongqing.

“This is the first time that Cambodia Airways has carried a high-level government delegation to China, and the second time the airline has provided a special flight for HE Prak Sokhonn and his delegation after flying [him] to the Indonesian capital, Jakarta, for the ASEAN Leaders Meeting in April of this year,” Cambodia Airways said in a press release on June 6.

According to the press release, having been entrusted by the government with such an important role for a second time, Cambodia Airways held several special meetings to discuss the flight schedule as well as the procedures in detail in order to ensure the smooth operation of the flight.

“The special flight took off from Phnom Penh International Airport at 14:00 and landed smoothly at Chongqing-Jiangbei International Airport at the scheduled local time of 18:10,” it said.

At present, Cambodia Airways is operating regular passenger flights between Phnom Penh and Chengdu, China, as well as regular cargo flights between Phnom Penh and Shenzhen, China.

According to the press release, the company will launch new routes between Cambodia and China as well as the routes between China and other ASEAN countries to bridge these cities, and contribute to the recovery of the economy in the region.

“This is a win for our company in terms of showing we provide great service because people will see that His Excellency Prak Sokhonn has travelled abroad with our airline,” Cambodia Airways marketing and branding manager Sok Ravy told The Post on June 6.

In a press release on June 4, the foreign ministry said Sokhonn will have a bilateral meeting with Chinese State Councillor and Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi.

At the end of the meeting, the two ministers will witness a signing ceremony for two documents. The first document is a memorandum of understanding (MoU) on cooperation on information telecommunications and communication technologies between the Cambodian Ministry of Posts and Telecommunications and China’s Ministry of Industry and Information Technology of China.

The second document is an MoU on cultural cooperation programmes between the Cambodian Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts and China’s Ministry of Culture.