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Keynote Address at the Inauguration of the New Office Building of the Ministry
of Commerce
Phnom Penh, February 4, 2010
Your Venerable Samdech Preah Sang Moha Somethea Tephatei NON
NGET, Chief of Monks, and Your Venerable Monks,
Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen distinguished national and
international guests!
It is my
pleasure to be here to inaugurate the New Office Building of the Ministry of
Commerce. On behalf of the Royal Government of Cambodia, I would like to commend
the management and officials serving under the Ministry of Commerce for their
hard work and close collaboration with related ministries/institutions toward
completing the construction of this new office.
According to H.E. Cham Prasidh, the construction of this new office building is financed by
the privatization of the former office of the Ministry and Toyota garage,
and the private sector is obliged to build the new office and equip the new
building with minimal office equipments. This achievement indeed stem from the
effort of the Ministry in broadening workplace and modernizing equipments to
boost efficiency and productivity. Taking this opportunity, I would also like to
commend the Ministry for the mental and physical effort to develop trade sector
and maximize both domestic and overseas trade potentials.
All these
achievements attest to the Ministry’s firm determination to take part in the
Royal Government’s policy implementation and the Rectangular Strategy – Phase
II to underpin growth, employment, equity and efficiency. In
this sense, I urge the Ministry of Commerce to capitalize on the newly built
office equipped with modern facilities and equipments to intensify its
operation.
I would like to
raise some background as a basis for evaluating the development of the Ministry
of Commerce. Under the leadership of Kampuchea’s People Revolutionary Party of
the People’s Republic of Cambodia, the Ministry was reestablished in 1979 as the
Ministry of Economy and Welfare led by H.E. Mok Sakun. The successors
include H.E. Ruos Sakmay, H.E. Tang Sarim, H.E. Chan Phin,
H.E. Ho Naun, H.E. Nhim Vanda, H.E. Va Huot, and presently
H.E. Cham Prasidh.
The Ministry was
indeed reestablished after the Great Victory Day on 7 January 1979 whose 31st anniversary has been celebrated recently. After the
reestablishment of the Ministry of Economy and Welfare, both the management and
officials worked very hard to restore trade sector. Their contribution and
sacrifice will be always remembered since the national reconstruction at that
time started from scratch, a country with almost anything destroyed, i.e. no
market transaction, no currency and deserted cities to achieve what we have
today. The Ministry has operated both during war and peace, especially during
trade embargo. During the People’s Republic of Cambodia and State of Cambodia,
the management and officials of the Ministry firmly fulfilled their duties in
promoting trade and protecting the nation by preventing the return of Khmer
Rouge. Sadly, some of them were killed, injured or disabled in duty. Also, all
levels of the Ministry’s officials have been instrumental in steering people
clear of hunger and supplying food and utilities to armed forces and people
across the nation to improve their livelihoods.
Even though in
the stage of economic reform, which was the most dangerous circumstance, this
Ministry has fulfilled its role to bring about continuous success to the
economic reform today. Cambodia has been integrating herself into the regional
grouping and global community in the name as a nation state that can stand on
its own equally with equal right with all countries in the world, in which
Cambodia became a member of the ASEAN and WTO. As a result, we have achieved a
great deal of works, which include: protecting and maintaining stability in
garment industry, that is now pursuing its progress, making a number of rules
and regulations to ensure consistency with the World Trade Organization,
preparing documents in the commitment table toward open market, trade and
services by promoting the joint tax reduction program for the ASEAN Free Trade
Area, eliminating the non-tariff barrier, strengthening the quality of goods and
services conforming to the technical standard and phytosanitary measures,
requesting for Generalized System for Preferences (GSP) on many products for
Cambodian export to the foreign markets with zero tariff rate or lowest tariff
rate, in which many countries have provided Cambodia with a status as Most
Favored Nation (MFN) such as the United States, China, Japan, Korea and other
countries in the Association of Southeast Asia, the successful negotiation to
open market with WTO member states, especially with a number of giant countries
such as the U.S, EU, China, Canada, Australia…etc. through the request to
eliminate the custom tariff and withdraw the non-tariff measures. At the same
time, we have maintained price stability for significant products, especially
food products and have accelerated the international trade for Cambodia since
2003 with the amount of USD 3, 000 million until the end of 2009, the
international trade of Cambodia was more than USD 10, 000 million.
Through this, we
are able to estimate that Cambodian trade has been moving quickly, yet the
global financial and economic crisis has impacted Cambodian trade, which was
declining at the end of 2008 and 2009. The Royal Government has always paid
high attention to strengthen this trade sector in short-, medium-, or long-term
through ensuring the steady peace, political stability, social order; and
building various physical infrastructures, improving legal frameworks and
enhancing the institutional capacity, developing human resources; and continuing
the policy of trade diversification…etc. In this regard, we have constantly
cooperated with the private sector and development partners in order to upgrade
the trade sector in the face of global financial and economic crisis, in which
the committee for the management of private sector development have always
discussed with private sector as well as related development partners to observe
the evolving process of the Cambodian economy and trade and request for the
practical measures to deal with the challenges we are facing.
According to the
overall situation, the global financial and economic crisis has been on a
passage to return back to normalcy in 2010 and this situation might be better in
the upcoming 2011. As for Cambodia, we have seen that the export in 2009
generally increased, especially the export of farming products at the beginning
of this year increased remarkably.
Along with the
achievements we have made so far and the objective to enhance the Cambodian
trade, I would like to take this opportunity to deliver a number of
recommendations to the management and officials of the Ministry of Commerce in
order to make this sector achieve success and truly and tremendously contribute
to the poverty reduction of the people as follows:
1. Must strengthen and expand export base that will enable Cambodia
to attract more foreign investors as well as continuing to effectively implement
GSP that Cambodia has received. Along with that, we must try our utmost to
boost and promote the local production through the implementation of the support
program for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) on food processing, handicrafts,
fisheries, tourism and textile industry in order to gain comparative advantage
of Cambodia, which is required to: (1) continue controlling quality and managing
safety of goods that are being trafficked in the domestic market in order to
ensure safety to the users (2) promote the value added initiatives, especially
on the agricultural products (3) strengthen and develop the quality standard for
Cambodian products in order to ensure consistency and the instruction on safety
and sanitation (4) increase opportunity for Cambodia products through the
creation of exhibition program inside and outside the country, and must
implement strictly the labor condition and the protection of the workers’ rights
that are the core and most important factors to compete for garment purchasing
order from oversea.
2. Keep actively rehabilitating and developing
national infrastructure in term of software and hardware through strengthening
legal framework and regulations, building institutional capacity to facilitate
business, trade and investments activities, for that we have to improve and
expand bilateral trade cooperation which could expand market access with tax
preferential system.
3. Strengthen implementation of intellectual
property right; cracking down production and distribution of fake products,
no-quality and spoiled products. In the connection, we have to establish
intellectual property right information center to inform customers about
intellectual property rights and registered labels as well as to promote
effective dispute resolution concerning with fake label fraud.
At the same time, we have to pay great attention to strictly and
effectively eliminating and cracking down problems relating to food, vegetables,
fruits and beverage fraudulence such as the alteration of quality, expiration date and adding chemical substances for
longer preservation, which could harm consumers’ health for the present and in
the future.
4. Ensure the price stability of necessary
commodity, by successfully implementing trade sector-wide approach, reducing overlapping duties and bureaucracy in trade facilitation through risk management and trade integration strategy, cutting down commission
fee and making effort to develop competition law which is a new mechanism to
monitor enterprises’ colluding activities to make price high.
5. Keep carrying out deeply regional and global
integration program by implementing firmly and strongly required conditions and
obligations inscribed in multilateral agreements such as China-Asean
Commodity Trade Agreement that Cambodia and China have agreed to start
implementation since 1st October 2009, China-Asean Service Trade
Agreement, Japan-Asean Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, Korea-Asean Framework Agreement on Comprehensive Economic Cooperation , Korea-Asean Commodity Trade Agreement, Korea-Asean Service Trade
Agreement, Asean Free Trade Area for Common Effective Preferential
Tariff ( CEPT) Scheme which came into effect and start being implemented
from 1st January 2010. Indeed the implementation of these agreements will bring
us many benefits such as boosting export-import activities in the region with
low tariff, without trade barriers and with fair competition…etc…
In the spirit of
what already mentioned, I firmly hope that all relevant ministries/institutions
and agencies, private sector and development partners and all the people will
actively participate in the implementation of economic integration policy in
both regional and global framework in order to reap maximum benefits and bring
about prosperity for Cambodia’s socio-economy. Through this, I would like to
appeal to all ministries/institutions, authorities concerned, donors, civil
society and national and international NGOs and all people to actively support
and help develop the trade sector with high responsibility by their respective
roles and duties to maintain and ensure a more favorable environment for
investment and business in Cambodia.
Before ending,
with this newly built and highly equipped office building, I would like to
remind the management and officials of the Ministry of Commerce to make further
effort with increase responsibility and be determined in fulfilling the mission
to promote Cambodia’s trade sector. Also, we must cut back on unnecessary
spending with high sense of responsibility and sacrifices for the national
interest.
At the end,
along with this Official Inauguration of the New Office Building of the Ministry
of Commerce, I would like to wish the Supreme Patriarch Non Nget, Chief of Monks of the Royal Kingdom of Cambodia and Your Venerable Monks,
Excellencies and gentlemen, national and international guests the four gems of
Buddhist blessings: “Longevity, Nobility, Health and Strength”.
EndItem
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