“Khmer Can Do” new national achievement coined by Prime Minister

• 1 June 2020
• Local News
• 5323 Views

“Khmer Can Do”, “the Rock of Love” and “the Tree of Love ” – these three new names were coined by Samdech Techo Prime Minister Hun Sen for three of the newly-built roads among 34 road development projects in Sihanoukville during his inspection visit on the progress of the construction projects on 01 June 2020.
“Khmer Can Do” is the name for a place where the mountain has had to be cut through the middle to build the road.

With the applause of the people accompanying the occasion full of national pride, Samdech Techo explained the meaning of “Khmer Can Do” that
“… It is not just a technique that we have to break the mountain to build a road… the meaning is beyond that material aspect…since it is conceptualizing until it materialized that is made by Khmer. The design concept and construction are also Khmer based. All design and construction techniques are made by Khmer hands.

All the money is by Khmer, no foreign involvement even a cent,” he said.

In addition to the quantitative proportion of the length and the number of roads and the amount of money to be used for the 34 roads, what he would like to convey in the text of the three road names is the spirit of solidarity, commitment and budget that comes from the Khmer blood itself, which can testify to Cambodia’s ability to maintain its independence and national sovereignty.

“… Cambodians did all of the work,” he said. “It’s not just about the hollow of the mountain, it’s far more than that…”

Another road name that he coined is “the Rock of Love” – a name for a road built on either side of a huge rock in the middle of the road.

Such a new way of marking national achievement has been cited by some as a distinctive attitude of the government as well as in the cultural history of the Khmer people, which in the past have often been linked to individuals than to name such a collective name for such a national achievement.

The other name that the prime minister coined is “the Tree of Love” which refers to the distinctive feature of the road that is built-in respect to a giant tree without disturbing it standing upright in the middle of the road.

Some observers see “the Tree of Love” as a symbol of the gradual development of physical infrastructure development in Cambodia, where the government has begun to integrate environmental sustainability into the core of development in line with the Sustainable Development Principles (SDGs). Here, it is symbolized by a tree growing in the middle of the road.

At the beginning of 2020, at the groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of National Road 10 connecting Pursat province to Koh Kong and Trat province and the inauguration of National Road 55, Samdech Hun Sen also gave National Road 55 the new name of “The Path of the Hidden Flower”.

“The Hidden Flower” name was touted by the Ministry of Tourism as a new national achievement symbol implying that it reveals a lot of development potential along the road, which has not yet been fully exploited before. It was not only economic development potential for the western region of the country, but it is also the integration of infrastructure, energy and tourism for national progress in all sectors.

The other name that the prime minister coined is “the Tree of Love” which her refers to the distinctive feature of the road that is built in respect to a giant tree without disturbing its standing upright in the middle of the road.

Some observers see “the Tree of Love” as a symbol of the gradual development of physical infrastructure development in Cambodia, where the government begins to integrate environmental sustainability into the core of development in line with the Sustainable Development Principles (SDGs). It symbolizes a tree growing in the middle of the road.

Remarkably, at the beginning of 2020, in the groundbreaking ceremony for the construction of National Road 10 connecting Pursat province to Koh Kong and Trat province and the inauguration of National Road 55, Samdech Hun Sen had also given the new name of National Road 55. He called it “The Path of the Hidden Flower”

“the Hidden Flower” after it was coined by the head of the government was cheered up  by the Ministry of Tourism as a new national achievement symbol implying that it reveals a lot of development potential along the road, which has not yet been fully exploited before.  It was not only economic development potential for the western region of the country, but it is also the integration of infrastructure, energy and tourism for national progress in all sectors.

• Tourism and Travelling
• Road and Infrastructure