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Cambodia: Strategic plan to maximise benefits from FTAs
Cambodia is expected to finalise a strategic plan later this month before submitting the document to the council of ministers for review and approval in order to maximise benefits from the implementation of free trade agreements (FTAs), officials said.
Seang Thai, secretary of state and spokesman of the Ministry of Commerce (MoC), told Khmer Times that the document has been reviewed many times through meetings with government officials from related ministries and businesspeople in the private sector.
“In the meeting, we decided to provide more time for relevant ministries and institutions to do final revision and then submit to the Commerce Ministry by the third week of this month in order to finalise and disseminate in the coming month,” Thai said.
The strategic plan that was discussed between officials of MoC and 57 officials from 15 relevant institutions focuses on existing markets such as the Cambodia-China Free Trade Agreement (CCFTA) and Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) were put in place early this year, and the Cambodia-Korea Free Trade Agreement will become effective soon, he said.
Commerce Minister Pan Sorasak said in a release that the main objective of preparing the strategic plan is to select most of Cambodia’s potential export commodities for existing markets in order to draw maximum benefits from all of those free trade agreements.
Sorasak stressed that firstly the working group should focus on ten prioritised commodities that include rice, cassava, banana, Pailin longan, mango, cashew, meat, natural rubber, pineapple and pepper before fish was added in the meeting on Wednesday. The plan also includes other commodities for export in the next step.
Sorasak said the preparation of the strategic plan began in the fourth quarter of 2020 and the initial draft was made in 2021 after passing through seven internal and external meetings to collect inputs from relevant ministries and institutions and a meeting with businesspeople in the private sector in early November last year.
Three days later, the draft strategic plan was discussed in an inter-ministerial meeting attended by Finance Minister Aun Pornminiroth before the last revision in early April this year,
Sok Chenda Sophea, Minister attached to the Prime Minister and Secretary-General of the Council for the Development of Cambodia on Tuesday encouraged to learn more about the investment potential and opportunities in Cambodia and to take advantage of the many agreements the country has signed, especially the RCEP.
The deficit in trade of commodities between Cambodia and the rest of
the world has narrowed by 23.55 percent to about $3.64 billion in the first five months of this year from $4.8 billion in the same period of 2021, according to figures released by the General Department of Customs and Excise (GDCE).
The trade deficit reduced as the value of export from Cambodia rose by 25.37 percent to $9.41 billion in the January-May period from $7 billion in the same period of the previous year, while the pace of exports was faster compared to imports, which rose by only 9.87 percent to $13.05 billion from $11.76 billion, according to figures.
China, US, Vietnam, Thailand and Singapore were the main commodity trade partners among the top 20 countries that exchanged commodities with Cambodia during this period.
The commodity trade volume between the Kingdom and China increased by 20.7 percent to nearly $5 billion in the January-May period of this year compared to $3.95 billion in the same period of last year, while exports from Cambodia to China dropped 7.41 percent, but imports rose by 23.96 percent to $4.47 billion, according to the figures.
Source: https://www.khmertimeskh.com/501109916/strategic-plan-to-maximise-benefits-from-ftas/