ACC Secretary-General Met with Under Secretary of State of Cambodian Ministry of Commerce

On 29 June 2016, H.E. Mme. Yang Xiuping, Secretary-General of ASEAN-China Centre (ACC), met with Mr. Sam Serei Rath, Under Secretary of State of Cambodian Ministry of Commerce. They exchanged views on strengthening Cambodia-China and ASEAN-China economic and trade cooperation.

Secretary-General Yang Xiuping introduced ASEAN-China and Cambodia-China economic and trade cooperation. She said, with the progress of regional economic integration, ASEAN-China economic and trade relations were getting closer. In 2015, the bilateral trade volume reached 472.1 billion USD, and the accumulated investment amount was 156.5 billion USD. China was the largest trade partner of ASEAN for the last seven years, while ASEAN was the third largest trade partner of China for five years in a roll. Cambodia and China were close neighbours, and the economies were highly complementary to each other. In 2015, bilateral trade volume reached 4.43 billion dollars and rose 17% from a year earlier. Bilateral trade and investment cooperation showed good momentum of development. ACC would take further steps to strengthen communication and cooperation with Cambodia and make joint efforts to promote the development of Cambodia-China and ASEAN-China economic and trade cooperation.

Mr. Sam Serei Rath complimented ACC on its efforts to promote ASEAN-China and Cambodia-China functional cooperation. He said that Cambodia and China were close in geography and intimate in culture. The two sides had natural advantages for cooperation. Currently, the economy of Cambodia maintained the momentum of rapid development, and the trade volume of Cambodia and China was constantly increasing. The leaders of both sides set out the aim of reaching 5 billion dollars of trade volume by 2017, and made great efforts to achieve this goal. The “Belt and Road” initiative proposed by China provided golden opportunities for ASEAN-China and Cambodia-China economic and trade cooperation. The Ministry of Commerce would like to strengthen cooperation with ACC, to make full use of related preferential policies, bring more high-quality products into Chinese market, attract more Chinese businesses to invest in Cambodia, and promote rapid development of economic and trade cooperation between the two countries.