Prime Minister Hun Sen yesterday announced that he will ask Japan for $800 million to build a Phnom Penh “skytrain” system during his visit to Tokyo.

The prime minister’s announcement, issued via his Facebook page, came as Japan’s international aid agency said a feasibility study into an elevated train project was being pushed back to September.

Officials have long discussed how to unclog Phnom Penh’s congested roads, but a previous plan to build an expressway to the airport was nixed last year after protests.

Vasim Sorya, the spokesman for the Ministry of Public Works and Transportation, said he did not have any information about the proposed elevated train.

“It is the policy of Samdech [Hun Sen],” he said. “That is a future project. JICA is studying it.” In a statement yesterday, JICA said the feasibility study would take one year.

Kaori Tanabe, first secretary at the Japanese Embassy in Cambodia, said the study will include a “social and environmental assessment”.

JICA previously said the proposed elevated train would have more than 10 stations, with a north-south corridor along Monivong Boulevard, an east-west corridor along Russian Boulevard and a southwest corridor along Charles de Gaulle and Monireth boulevards.

Hun Sen’s three-day trip to visit Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe ends Wednesday.