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Speech at the
Cambodia-Kuwait Business Luncheon Organized by Kuwait Chamber of Commerce and
Industry (TOAST Click here)
14 January 2009, at 12:30
- Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen!
Today I have a great honor and pleasure to be
here to make a presentation on “Cambodia as an attractive investment
destination”, given its recent strong social and economic development.
I thank the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of
Kuwait for organizing this Cambodia-Kuwait Business Luncheon and for giving us
an opportunity to meet the members of the Chamber as well as the representatives
from capital markets and partner companies to inform them about the great
investment opportunities in Cambodia for Kuwaiti investors.
I strongly believe that this luncheon will indeed
contribute to further strengthening the growing bilateral friendship and
cooperation between our two countries and people, Cambodia and Kuwait.
Here, I would like to take this opportunity to
raise some of the key issues involving Cambodia’s current socio-economic
developments and our vision for future. In addition, I will elaborate on what, I
believe, are the comparative advantage for investing in Cambodia.
Over the past decade, Cambodia achieved peace and
political, socio-economic stability which it had never experienced so in its
long history. Cambodia has eventually closed the darkest page of its recent
history and moved forward toward its bright future.
The Royal Government of Cambodia has been
implementing serious reforms in all sectors, including Public Financial
Management Reform, Financial Sector Development, Private Sector Development and
Governance Reform including land management, administration and legal and
judicial reforms aimed at improving business and investment climate through
trade facilitation and increased private sector participation in physical
infrastructure and development of small and medium enterprises (SMEs). The Royal
Government has strived to achieve all these reforms in an environment of
political stability and peace in the country, which is a favorable condition for
the country in its efforts to improve standards of living, to protect human
rights and dignity, to build democracy and to achieve sustainable development
for its people.
Having achieved steady growth and successes over
the past several years, Cambodia is now confident that we are on an important
gateway toward a bright future, full of optimism and hopes.
In opening the 21st century, Cambodia is on the
road toward sustainable development. Cambodia experienced strong macroeconomic
stability and significant improvement in standards of living. Real economic
growth was 7% in 2008, lower than previous year that peaked at 13.3% in 2003 and
slowed down to 10.8% in 2006 and 10.2% in 2007. Per capita GDP increased from
US$247 in 1994 to US$624 in 2008. The Royal Government has carefully managed
inflation by maintaining it at low rate for many years. However, in 2008,
inflation increased to more than 20% due to pressure from oil price, soaring
food prices and depreciation of US dollar during the first quarter. In the
second quarter, the pressure was subsided and averaged annual inflation rate is
estimated to be 18%, while in 2009 it would reduce further to single digit to
around 7%. At the same time, monetary and exchange rate policies have been
prudentially implemented to manage inflation and macroeconomic stability.
International reserve increased to almost US$2 trillions, which is for 3 months
of total imported goods and services for domestic consumption.
This has contributed to reducing poverty
incidence from 47% in 1994 to 34% in 2000, and according to the latest
estimates, this incidence reduced to 30% in 2007. For this, within this period
the poverty incidence has been reduced annually by 1% on average. At the same
time, future prospects in oil and gas as well as other mineral exploitation will
open another opportunity for economic development for Cambodia to be a new
development center in the region.
In medium term, we forecast that Cambodia's
economy will remain robust thanks to the efforts in agriculture sector and the
expansion into non-farms sectors. This will contribute to ensuring an average
growth of about 7% annually. Political stability, active private sector’s
initiatives, stable evolution in reform efforts and ODA support as well as FDI
are the key basis for our optimistic forecasts.
Cambodia is a country with great and unexploited
potential. Potential in agriculture and agro-industry is tremendous with fertile
land and favorable natural condition. Cambodia still needs a number of
infrastructures such as transport system, telecommunication, and electricity and
irrigation system.
The Royal Government clearly understands that
agriculture is the key sector to enhance and expand the basis for economic
growth and to reduce the vulnerability due to external instability and crisis.
For this, we need to rely more on the potential of our domestic economy. Indeed,
agriculture sector will provide rapid and positive impacts, through government’s
efforts, on improving the livelihood of people especially in rural areas where
80% of the total population live.
Agriculture policy of the Royal Government aims
at improving productivity. Agriculture is the leading sector in enhancing
economic growth and in reducing poverty. In this perspective, the Royal
Government continues to accord high priority to improving agriculture
productivity and diversification, and enhancing agro-businesses. The Royal
Government will continue to enhance production capacity over existing lands by
shifting its focus on "extension" into a more "comprehensive" or "intensive”
development approach in order to increase production, create more jobs, generate
more income in rural areas, ensure food security and increase exports of
agricultural produces, especially rice export. Cross-cutting interventions
across sectors are needed such as techniques, agriculture inputs, research and
development, agriculture dissemination, construction and rural infrastructure
maintenance, especially irrigation system, credits and micro-finance, market
expansion for agriculture produces, establishment of farmer communities and
agricultural land management. The Royal Government continues to enhance
partnership between smallholder farmers with large-scale farms, agriculture
enterprises and between agriculture and social land concessionaires especially
in the area of agro-industry plantation such as rubber plantation, in line with
strategic development plan of rubber, cashew nut and sugar cane sectors.
At the same time, the Royal Government has also
provided land for large scale agriculture and agro-industry projects through
economic concessions to private companies. The Royal Government of Cambodia
supports large scale investments in agriculture and agro-industry through
economic land concession with the main objective of socio-economic development,
jobs creation and improved livelihood in rural area by linking development with
sustainable environment conservation.
Concerning tourism, Cambodia is fortunate to
inherit great historical and cultural heritages especially Angkor Wat Temple and
a beautiful natural environment along the mountain ranges, forests, lakes,
seashore and offshore islands. Tourism continues to blossom contributing to the
development of the service sector. Tourism sector in Cambodia is so attractive
for investment thanks to the diversity of historical and cultural heritages,
natural cultural parks such as forests, lakes, seashores and beautiful and
attractive landscapes. Tourist arrivals have increased from 170,000 in 1993 to
more than 2 millions in 2008. Indeed, the great potential of tourism sector will
play the key role in linking production and services in hotel and hospitality
sector with demand for other goods.
In addition to the potential of these sectors,
Cambodia membership in ASEAN, WTO and AFTA and Trade Agreement with China, EU
and the US as well as other development initiatives in the region have provided
market access to most countries around the world. Many agreements had not been
exploited to their potential leaving lots of investment opportunities for
investors to explore and make investments.
The Royal Government has committed to working
together with private sector to address the challenges in order to improve
investment climate that would benefit all local and international businesses.
Especially, the promotion of trade facilitation would induce private sector to
play a key role in driving growth, which is critical for the survival of
Cambodia.
So far the Royal Government has focused on
improving governance which is a necessary condition to promote private
investments. Governance reforms are the core of Rectangular Strategy. These
reforms are firmly moving forward including the reforms of legal systems and
public administration. In this context, the Royal Government is now finalizing
the Corruption Law to be aligned with international standards.
The Royal Government is trying to remove
obstacles to private sector development by focusing on improving investment
climate including improvements in legislations, regulations and administrative
procedures. The Royal Government is fully aware that institutions and good
policy are very important for sustainable economic growth. Thus our effort is to
focus on strengthening legal frameworks to support sustainable economic
development.
With key achievements briefly mentioned earlier,
the Royal Government has been committed to implementing in-depth reform to
improve domestic business environment. As I indicated, the Royal Government
considers the favorable business environment as an important precondition for
long term development. Thus, our continued commitments will be on the following
priorities:
First-The Royal Government will continue focusing
on trade facilitation aimed at reducing costs in doing business especially the
costs related to export and import operations. Trade facilitation reform will
focus on:
1. Reducing inspection process by
rationalizing the role and responsibility of government agencies involving in
regulating export and import activities.
2. Establishing a “One Stop Service” for
international trade activities, and
3. Implementing Customs System Improvement
Program by introducing automation and single document process for administrative
purposes in managing import-export activities.
Second- Establishing production bases in
provinces, cities and outskirts of Phnom Penh and ensuring economic links among
them and with rest of the country. For this purpose, the Royal Government has
established some special economic zones (SEZs) along the borders with Thailand
and Vietnam including those in Koh Kong, Poipet, Phnom Den, and in the
surrounding areas of Phnom Penh and Preah Sihanouk Province with purpose to
attract more investments into Cambodia. In addition to geographical advantages,
the “One Stop Service” procedure, which has been put in place at each location,
is simple, easy to use and saving time. Moreover, the SEZs offer investors
superior and complete infrastructure and facilities, such as road network,
factory buildings, electricity, clean water, water treatment plant, skill
training, banking service, postal service and telecommunication.
Third-Further strengthening tourism sector and
ensuring the linkages between tourism and agriculture which is important for
upgrading the livelihood of people. In fact, a key component of the Royal
Government’s strategy is to establish green belt zone or agricultural
development zone surrounding tourist destinations, a pro-poor tourism
development. In this light, in order to facilitate and attract private
investments, the Royal Government have paid great attention on improving key
tourism infrastructure such as road network and airports in Phnom Penh, Siem
Reap, Sihanoukville, Ratanakiri, Koh Kong and in other places. The Royal
Government is channeling more investments to build agricultural infrastructure
and provide facilities to the development of green zones surrounding key tourist
sites.
Indeed, in our development philosophy, market
principles are the core while private sector is the growth driver and the most
important partner of the government who is a development strategist. In this
regard, we strongly hope that the priorities mentioned earlier will further open
new economic opportunities for Cambodia’s sustainable and equitable development.
I would like to invite Kuwait Government and
investors to explore opportunity for cooperation and investment in Cambodia,
namely in three key areas (agriculture, tourism and oil/gas) where Cambodia has
the comparative advantage.
The singing of agreements on flight service and
tourism cooperation and the Memorandum on Steung Sen Irrigation Development
Project between Kuwait and Cambodia is a historic event in the relations between
Cambodia and Kuwait. This is a new commitment of the Royal Government of
Cambodia to promote investments and to strengthen economic ties between Cambodia
and Kuwait. These agreements will create favorable investment climate for Kuwait
investors to invest in agriculture, tourism and oil and gas sector in Cambodia.
- Excellencies, Ladies, Gentlemen!
Sustainable economic development requires a joint
effort by the government and private sector. In this regard, Cambodia and Kuwait
have been working together to ensure that opportunities are excelled and used
for the robust economic growth and the benefits of both parties. Thus, I
strongly hope that strengthening our cooperation will bring about prosperity to
both countries and their people.
With optimism, I wish Your Excellencies, Ladies
and Gentlemen, good health, success and happiness. I wish that the friendship,
solidarity and cooperation between our countries and people (Cambodia and
Kuwait) will grow, broaden and deepen for the prosperity of all of us.
TOAST of Samdech Akka Moha Sena Padei Techo HUN SEN, Prime Minister of the
Kingdom of Cambodia at the dinner hosted by His Excellency Sheikh
Nasser Al-Mohammed Al-Ahmed Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, Prime Minister of the
State of Kuwait, in honour of the Cambodian Delegation
Official Visit to the State of Kuwait on 13-15 January 2009
- Excellency Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammed Al-Ahmed Al-Jaber
Al-Sabah, Prime Minister of the State of Kuwait
- Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
First of all, I would like to express my sincere thanks to His
Excellency Prime Minister and the Government of the State of Kuwait for the
cordial hospitality accorded to me and members of the Cambodian delegation, and
for hosting this sumptuous dinner tonight. I am indeed very happy to pay my
first visit ever to the State of Kuwait as well as the Persian Gulf region. I
do believe that my visit to Kuwait will open a new and significant page of
dynamic and rapidly expanding relations and cooperation between our two
countries.
This evening, His Excellency Prime Minister and I discussed and exchanged
views on bilateral relations as well as regional and international issues in a
very cordial atmosphere and extensive mutual understanding. We agree to have
four documents signed, namely :
1) Agreement on Air Service
2) MOU on the Field of Exchange of Manpower
3) Agreement on Tourism Cooperations
4) MOU on the Implementing the Development Project in the Stung Sen
River Basin
in addition to seven document previously signed in August last year.
I firmly hope that through the these documents the future cooperation between
our countries in the relevant field will be more dynamic and deepened and will
expand to new areas, thus, bringing about mutual benefits to both our peoples.
Availing myself of this special occasion, I wish to express my profound
thanks to the government of the State of Kuwait for considering to provide loan
for the execution of the Stung Sen irrigation Development Project. Moreover,
Kuwait is facilitating the opening of the Royal Embassy in Kuwait. I trust that
Kuwait will open its Embassy in Phnom Penh in the near future.
Finally, may I invite Your Excellencies, Ladies
and Gentlemen to join me in a toast:
- to the good health of His Highness Sheikh Sabah
Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah, Emir of the State of Kuwait,
- to the good health of His
Majesty Preah Bat Samdech Preah Boromneath Norodom Sihamoni, King of Cambodia,
- to the good health of His
Excellency Sheikh Nasser Al-Mohammed Al-Ahmed Al-Jaber
Al-Sabah, Prime Minister of the State of Kuwait and Madam
- to greater happiness and
prosperity of the people of Kuwait,
- to the bonds of close
friendship and active cooperation between the Kingdom of Cambodia and the State
of Kuwait, and
- to the good health of
Your Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen here present.
Thank You
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