Cambodia strengthens trade ties with Pakistan, Bangladesh

The Ministry of Commerce (MoC) yesterday inked an agreement with Pakistan to establish a joint committee aimed at elevating trade cooperation. It is also preparing another Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) to be signed with Bangladesh to promote the trade of rice.

Cham Nimul, Minister of Commerce, and Zaheeruddin Babar Thaheem, Ambassador of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan to Cambodia, signed an MoU in Phnom Penh to create the joint trade committee for mutual benefits.

Speaking at the signing ceremony, Nimul underlined the importance of the MoU that will significantly contribute to the elevation of the two countries’ relations, particularly on trade and economic cooperation.
“The joint trade committee established under this agreement will serve as a mechanism that allows both sides to explore ways to create favourable conditions for businesses and investors and to diversify economies, expand production bases, and foster bilateral trade,” she noted.

The minister continued that Cambodia and Pakistan are committed to work together closely and actively engage the private sectors including the chambers of commerce and business associations in both nations.

The initiative aimed at promoting trade and economic activities, exchanging trade insight, boosting small and medium enterprises, and enabling standardization, technical regulation as well as conformity assessment procedures for the Sanitary and Phytosanitary Measures (SPS) and Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) regulations to streamline exports, she said.

While speaking to Khmer Times, Dr Tan Monivann, Vice President of Mong Rethhy Group Co Ltd noted that SPS is a measure to ensure the quality of the products based on each country’s standards which generally demands the certificate of origin (CO) while the TBT is a regulation that involves taxes required from both parties.

He emphasised that once the agreement is made, both parties will discuss ways to reduce complicated requirements of SPS and TBT which will pave the way for business to carry out their trade activities with ease.

Besides the two requirements, there are also non-technical barriers such as the complicity of paperwork demand, the obstacle to document processing and approval requests which could delay the trade cooperation, Monivann said.

A day earlier, Nimul also received a farewell call from Mohammed Abdul Hye, Ambassador of the People’s Republic of Bangladesh to Cambodia to discuss and exchange views on mechanisms that could strengthen the two nation’s bilateral trade cooperation.

During the meeting, she also informed the Bangladesh Ambassador of the Kingdom’s positive growth in the first four months of this year.

The minister went on to request the ambassador to consider arranging the schedule for the first meeting of the Cambodia-Bangladesh Joint Trade Council as well as of signing an MoU to continue rice trade between the two countries.

Based on the report from the General Department of Customers and Excise (GDCE), Cambodia’s exports were worth $8 billion in the first four months of 2024, rising by 15.2 percent compared to $6.9 billion during the same period last year while the imports reached $8.6 billion, an increase of 9.3 percent during the same period.

Penn Sovicheat, Secretary of State and Spokesperson of MoC said that the implementation of the Cambodia-China Free Trade Agreement and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement have added momentum to Cambodia’s exports.

“Despite the war crisis and weakening of the purchasing power, the Kingdom’s export orders remained high, with the volume remaining unchanged. Although there was a decline in some items, this was compensated by an increase in other items,” he added.

Source: Khmer Times