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Keynote Address at Ground Breaking
Ceremony of the Construction of Fertilizer Factory - "Five Star
International Fertilizer Cambodia Co., Ltd"
Kiensvay District, Kandal Province, 24th December 2009
Respectful Venerable Monks,
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,
Distinguished National and International Guests,
Dear Compatriots,
Today, it is my great pleasure to attend
the ground breaking ceremony of fertilizer factory which is invested and
constructed by The Five Star International Fertilizer Cambodia in
Samrongthom commune, Kiensvay district, Kandal province at the moment. This new
achievement will contribute to development and improve livelihood of our people
in this area and transform this area into production base in the future for
manufacturing goods to response to the needs of our people domestically and for
export. People of this area and I are proud of the achievement we have made,
because this outcome will generate many opportunities including employment
generation and development of physical infrastructure at locality.
Taking this opportunity, I would like to
convey my congratulation and warm welcome to the Five Star Group International from Vietnam for deciding to invest in Cambodia at the time Cambodia is in need
for promoting investment. Indeed, international investors will understand
business situation and favorable investment climate in Cambodia through
successful execution of this new investment project. On behalf of the Royal
Government, I would like to take this opportunity to reaffirm that the
government steadfastly welcomes and encourages investment projects to Cambodia,
and put further effort to bolster and expand economic cooperation, liberalize
industrial development as well as to improve investment climate which is
credible to investors and businessmen. I would like to highly appreciate all
investors who invest in Cambodia despite the world being affected by the global
economic and financial crisis.
At the
same time, the Royal Government has been promoting role of private sector which
is considered to “growth
locomotive” for development,
which is very important sector of poverty reduction policy of the government by
providing opportunities and employment creation for people. In this connection,
the government‘s policy to attract both domestic and international private
investors is a vital task at the moment.
The
establishment of the fertilizer factory apparently reflects the attention of the
Royal Government, who laid out national development strategy and made the best
use of domestic resource to strengthen and expand Cambodia’s competitiveness
amidst the current of globalization to ensure sustainable development. This also
enhances cooperation with the Social Republic of Vietnam, who always supports to
strengthen and expand economic and trade link between the two countries.
In
this regard, investment and commencement of construction of this fertilizer
factory are outcome of achievements and projects, resulting from good economic
cooperation and good relationship between the two countries of Cambodia and
Vietnam, which allow favorable business environment for private sector of both
countries to come, jointly make investment and create business. I strongly
believe that economic and trade relationship will bring huge benefit to people
of the two countries such as people-to-people relationship in traffic and trade
in goods, increase ability to maximize benefit of comparative advantage of each
country from trade as H.E Suy Sem just highlighted.
This opportunity cannot be separated from
the implementation of the “win-win” policy which rooted out both
political and military organization of the Pol Pot Regime. Through this, we all
have enjoyed peace and stability, pre-requisites for socio-economic development
and improved living standard has been seen today. Moreover, the Royal Government
will remain firmly committed to moving Cambodia forward to fulfill the needs of
its people.
By implementing this right vision, the
Royal Government has received tremendous support from people across the country
reflected by the 2008 general election. Starting from this support, the Royal
Government has realized some significant achievements to move Cambodia forward.
In particular, the Royal Government has been working hard for the development of
all kinds of infrastructure, including human resource development that, in turn,
will accelerate economic growth and strengthen competitiveness of Cambodia to
enable it to integrate effectively, on equal basis and status, into the regional
and global framework.
The construction of this large-scale
fertilizer factory is another specific indication of new achievements of the
Royal Government of the fourth legislature of the National Assembly. This also
echoes the rightness and success of the Royal Government in undertaking the Rectangular Strategy-Phase II introduced. One of
the strategic rectangles gives specific importance to the development of
private sector which is a key to encourage accommodative business environment as
well as the development of private enterprises, aiming at diversifying economic
foundation and industry sector and providing employment opportunity to people
living in this area to earn more income and reduce poverty incidence. Once their
incomes have been improved, we can reduce the rate of urbanization. Moreover,
this area will absorb people from surrounding and neighboring areas, therefore
we can transform this place into a new developed area. Along with this,
although we are supporting and pushing hard for domestic production, we do not
close our door to imports. This openness aims at strengthening the capacity and
quality of domestic production since their viability will depend on the ability
to compete with foreign products.
This factory will become the first
large-scale fertilizer factory in Cambodia and this is a very joyful piece of
news for Cambodian farmers since they used to rely entirely on imports. In this
sense, farmers will benefit from the factory. According to the reported figure,
the factory can produce 350,000 tons per year during the first stage of its
operation. This figure will be bumped to 500,000 tons in its second stage to
serve the demand of domestic farmers and foreign markets. This factory will
indeed be a significant contribution to import substitution for farmers, create
more choices of fertilizer and increase market competition so that farmers will
benefit from better products and competitive price.
Along with the economic and trade
benefits, the factory will be an important source of employment and provide
indirect opportunity to many people who will earn income from the
factory-related jobs including: wholesale and retail businesses, transport
services, maintenance services, and supporting businesses that supply the demand
of the factory. Another gain which characterizes our long-term strategy is the
transfer of knowledge, know-how and technology to enable the development of
agro-industry and other agricultural supporting sectors. In particular, the
factory will be centre of capacity development for Cambodian workers and
engineers as they are exposed to both trainings and practice.
Taking this opportunity, in order to
ensure the socio-economic interest with sustainability, I would like to request
the company to pay high attention in producing the mixed agricultural
fertilizers with high quality as well as responding to the need of the technical
standard and proper price in order to contribute in promoting the agricultural
development in Cambodia through increasing the cultivation yield and farming of
Cambodian farmers. Along with this, the company has to strictly respect the
working laws, environmental laws, rules and other regulations which are now in
effect. The company has to be stick to the principles of high responsibility on
the environmental and social issues by closely cooperating with the Ministry of
Industry, Mines and Energy and the Ministry of Environment in implementing the
laws on the management of factories-enterprises and laws on the protection of
environment in order to protect the welfare, safety, industry and mitigate the
negative impacts on the social environment and other pollution, resulted from
the process of the activities of this agricultural fertilizer factory.
In this connection, the local workshops
and all industries must also pay attention more intensively to strengthen and
expand the ability, possibility and quality of the production and its products
in order to solve all challenges of the market competition as well as satisfying
the consumers. If we enforce this kind of action we will be able to create a
mutually supportive mechanism, consistent needs and supply, and contributing to
the enhancement of the national competition of Cambodia, which will boost the
economic growth more intensively leading to the acceleration of development in
our society.
At the same time, I would like to request
the competent authorities, especially the Ministry of Industry, Mines and Energy
to continue good cooperation by preparing clear cut monitoring program, which is
to be consistently done, in order to make sure that the production and products
are in line with the industrial standard. In this connection, the Ministry of
Environment must take a lead in strictly monitoring the management of industrial
wastes as well as cooperating with the company in implementing principles of
clean technology, aiming to reduce wastes and negative impacts on the
environment, human and weather. In this spirit, I strongly believe that all
related ministries/institution will continue implementing their tasks with high
responsibility.
At the end, with the announcement to open
the construction of the Agricultural Fertilizers Factory of the Five Star
International Fertilizer Cambodia now, I would like to wish the
Venerable Monks, Excellencies, Lok Oknha, Ladies and Gentlemen, National and
International Distinguished Guests and all Compatriots the four gems of Buddhist
blessing: Longevity, Nobility, Health and Strength.
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