An across-the-board trade and investment deal
signed with China’s Yunnan province on Friday was a jump-start to Chinese
President Hu Jintao’s pledge a week earlier to double bilateral trade with the
Kingdom to US$5 billion by 2017.
The
package signing, which brought a delegation of 45 Chinese corporations into the
room with about 250 Cambodian businesspeople, included investments in energy,
cement, rice milling and agricultural technology, as well as proposed direct
flights with China’s south-westernmost province.
Officials
declined to put a price tag on the deal on Friday.
Bilateral trade
Increasing
bilateral trade by $2.5 billion within five years would require the two
countries to step up trade by 25 per cent a year, Minister of Commerce Cham
Prasidh said in the statement.
“[The]
visit proves that China shows the commitment on promoting trade and economic
cooperation between the two countries after both governments agreed to spur
bilateral trade to $5 billion by 2017,” he said during a speech at Friday’s
signing ceremony.
Industry
leaders last week told the Post that the boost to bilateral trade would mean an
influx of Chinese products and investment in the one-sided relationship.
Cambodian
conglomerate Royal Group of Companies and China’s Huaneng Lancang River
Hydropower will build two hydropower dams in Stung Treng province, according to
a statement from the Cambodian government.
The
companies will hold a 30-year concession to operate the 400-megawatt dams,
which were expected to be complete within five years, the statement said.
Royal
Group CEO Kith Meng declined to comment on Friday.
Yunnan-bound
Cambodia’s
Soma Group and Yunnan Pan-Asia Agriculture Cooperation and Development signed a
$100-million deal for milled rice exports, Council of Ministers spokesman Ek
Tha said yesterday.
The
companies would invest in a rice mill and 200,000 tonnes in rice exports were
expected to start at the end of this year, he said.
“This
agreement will help us expand our milled-rice market – especially in a market
as big as China,” he said.
Soma
signed a 20,000-tonne agreement with Yunnan Provincial Overseas Investment in
June, the Post reported.
However
no direct rice exports to China followed, and officials said a recent trial run
failed to pass Chinese inspections.
Other
agreements signed on Friday included what would be Cambodia’s biggest cement
plant.
Cambodia
CCR Co and China’s GCCP Co would build a 1.1 million-tonne per year plant, but
the cost and timeframe for the project were not specified.
'Mutual efforts'
Yunnan
Governor and delegation leader Li Jiheng also recommended direct flights
between the province and Siem Reap.
Business
with Yunnan would aid Cambodia in energy and agriculture development, given the
province’s experience with hydropower projects and rice farming, he said.
“Such
experience meets the growing need of the future of development of Cambodia. I
expect that though the mutual efforts, Yunnan and Cambodia could come up with
more achievements in sectors of mineral resource, hydropower, tobacco industry
as well as key infrastructure construction,” he said.
“I
would like to strengthen our economic and trade ties with the priority given to
technological cooperation.”
May
Kunmakara
The
Phnom Penh Post
Business & Investment Opportunities
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