Treaty on Waterway Transportation, signed by both countries in Phnom Penh today, legally binds Cambodia and Viet Nam to reducing the official restrictions that have existed for cross-border navigation. Both governments say that the move will free-up regional and international trade, help avoid delays and make river-based customs and immigration procedures more efficient and straight-forward. The agreement also introduces a range of other measures that should improve efficiency and safety for vessels using the more than 65 Cambodian and Vietnamese registered internal ports. According to this agreement, it gives the precious opportunity to both countries to see the economic benefits. As can be seen in the case of Cambodia, we can see those benefits regarding the following evidences. First of all, it is related to the accessibility. The network of Cambodian waterways is directly connected to the network of the neighboring inland navigation country Viet Nam and by that network to the South China Sea and the rest of the world.  Moreover, the concentration of the major industries also can be reach to Cambodia by waterway as well. So far, we have some predominant international and domestic ports including international river port of Phnom Penh, Preah Sihaknouk sea port, and other domestic ports like Chong Kneas, Kampong Cham, Kampong Chhnang, Kratie, Stung Treng and others that give the direct network to Cambodia with the rest of the world. Second, inland navigation is considered inexpensive. It can be seen clearly in the use of fuel. With only 5 litters of fuel, an inland barge can transport one tone of cargo over a full 500 km whereas a train would come to a halt after 333 km, a truck after barely 100 km, and an airplane would crash after only 6.6 km of flight in the same amount of fuel. Third, it is about the speed and on time.  Unlike the land transportation, waterway can transport on time due to it doesn?t have traffic jam and congestion. More importantly, Inland navigation is sometimes perceived as a ?slow? mode of transport. However, when transported volumes are taken into account, a completely different picture comes to mind. In less than 24 hours, inland navigation can transport more than 5,000 tones from Ho Chi Minh City to Phnom Penh.  On the other hand, waterway nowadays is more reliable, since it can transport on time while a shipping agent can impossibly predict the time of arrival of goods that are transported on a road truck. Fourth, Safety is another advantage of IWT. Accidents on the waterways are rare, and IWT has a very low injury and fatality record compared with the rail and truck transport of freight.

Although an ever-increasing volume of dangerous goods is transported, inland navigation remains by far the safest mode of transport. One of the reasons is that passenger traffic on inland waterways is almost completely separated from transport of goods. Inland navigation barges are specialized vessels, complying with very strict regulations. In addition, skippers are well trained and have attended refresher courses in the field of transport of specific cargo. No form of transport is safer than inland shipping. Inland shipping leads the way in safe transport of flammable and poisonous substances with the highest standards of inspection, training and licensing.

International regulations lay down specific rules for ships in each category to ensure all products are transported under strictly defined conditions and guarantee absolute safety. Last but not least, by using waterway, it can provide Cambodia a variety of goods. Some goods like sand, gravel, and oil, we cannot transport by air freight or land transport so in this case inland navigation plays a vital role to fulfill these goods. 

More significantly, Cambodia has more chances to enjoy the others benefits both in the present and in the future. In fact, it provides the protection against the flood, accessibility to the water supply, increasing the tourism revenues, and so on. 

Regarding the agreement, there have been used three scenarios: Pessimistic, Medium and Optimistic to predict the level of future regional waterway transportation demand on the Mekong River System (MRS) and these scenarios will be apply to international level and domestic level to forecast about the economic growth that Cambodia will get from MRS. First, We will forecast for growing in regional waterborne traffic volume on the MRS over the 20 years period 2005 to 2025 internationally. Second, it is conducted domestically through ?Do Nothing? economic forecast, and for the social consultation it is called the ?terminal decline? scenario. As, this forecasting assumes that no measurement will be taken to extend port and waterway capacity beyond current limits. In other words, in the absence of any measurement to extend capacity or eliminate the bottlenecks, traffic will continue to grow up to some point at which it can growth no further, and will then begin to decline. Interestingly, it is assumed that rural infrastructure development is dominated by substantial investment in improving and expending the rural network, and based on this assuming it is expected that the economic activity in the rural will be increases. We can conclude that even we do nothing in improving and development at least we still can increase in the growing rate of the passengers in domestic. Therefore, if we try to improve and develop more as well as to deal with the challenges and obstacle that we are facing now, the growing rate will be increase more and we will get more benefits than what we are getting now. In conclusion, the inland navigation agreement which made by Cambodia and Viet Nam does provide lots of economic benefits to Cambodia both in the present and in the future.