The pallets were provided by the South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport in a handover ceremony attended by representatives from both sides in Phnom Penh. MPWT
South Korea has provided 2,000 pallets as development assistance to the Ministry of Public Works and Transport in support of its logistics master plan on modernisation, and the donation will enable the ministry to carry out a study on possible efficiency gains via the standardisation of pallets in the Kingdom.
The pallets were provided by the South Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport in a handover ceremony attended by representatives from both sides in Phnom Penh.
“[This donation] represents the ongoing cooperation between the Republic of Korea and the Kingdom of Cambodia for the development of the logistics sector in the country to assist recovery efforts following the unprecedented global challenges caused by the Covid-19 pandemic,” the public works ministry said in a statement.
Public works ministry secretary of state So Victor said the pallets will also be forwarded to the departments that will be using them – such as the Sihanoukville Autonomous Port, Phnom Penh Autonomous Port and the Poipet-O’Neang Special Economic Zone – as these are the primary participants in the study on the use of standard pallets under the supervision of the ministry.
“The pallets from the Korean side are part of a first-year study of the Cambodian master plan for logistics system modernisation. The pallets will be used in a pilot project on standardisation along with a logistics computer system.
"The project is being implemented by the ministry's General Department of Logistics, with the support of the Korean Ministry of Land, Infrastructure and Transport and the Korea Research Institute,” he said.
Institute for Road Safety director Kong Ratanak said that although the assistance is not related to traffic safety work, as a citizen he was always thankful whenever one of Cambodia’s many allies steps up with aid for the Kingdom.
However, he said the fact that Cambodia needed assistance for the provision of such a basic item showed that the need to modernise Cambodia’s logistics was urgent and it may actually need to be a process of building a logistics system from scratch rather than upgrading an existing one.
“Overall, we thank our friends for helping us carry out this research study, but I would be even more thankful if they could help us by eliminating our need for this assistance in the future, perhaps by giving Cambodia the facilities and capacity to produce [pallets] domestically,” he said.
