Government formulates trade strategy to maximize free trade agreement (FTA)

H.E. Seang Thay, Secretary of State of the Ministry of Commerce, chaired a meeting on the preparation of a trade strategy to maximize the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with the participation of His Excellency Undersecretary of State, His Excellency the Government Delegate, His Excellency the Director General Deputy Heads of Departments, Acting Heads of Departments, Acting Heads of Institutions, and other relevant officials to review the progress of work, receive input and determine the direction of activities for further research.

To begin with, the Secretary of State stated that in accordance with the high-level directives of Samdech Akka Moha Sena Padei Techo Hun Sen, Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Cambodia, H.E. Pan Sorasak, Minister of Commerce, instructed the Working Group to develop a strategy to take advantage of Maximum from the implementation of the Free Trade Agreement to which Cambodia is a signatory. Therefore, a research working group has been set up to study, research and develop export promotion strategies in accordance with Prakas No. 291 MOC.Prk  on revising the Working Group on Policy Development and Negotiation Strategies to establish a free trade agreement.

In addition, the working group informed the meeting about the results of the previous research on nine commodities: garment sector, footwear, special economic zone, light manufacturing industry, food processing, fisheries, rice, cassava and natural rubber to boost exports to China and the conditions for entering the Chinese market, and to study the volume of global trade, Cambodia's exports to the world market and to the markets of major importing partners. In particular, the study and analysis of strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, threats (SWOT Analysis) to determine which products are new, growing products, mature products to facilitate the promotion of more exports.

In addition, the working group also studied the tariff regime (import tariff) according to the type of multilateral trade agreement (MFN) under the ASEAN-China Free Trade Agreement (ACFTA) in favor of Cambodia Preferential tariff for Cambodia China's Special Preferential Duty (LDCs) and the status of the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) to review exports under whichever agreement is most favorable, and also to study China's technical barriers to importing each goods. 

As a result, the meeting accepted the key inputs and decided to integrate the research results into a single report, defining the contents of the report and setting up a Factsheet for sample items for the next meeting agenda.