Phnom Penh (FN), Oct. 6 – Cambodian prime minister Hun Sen shared seven thoughts and directions at the opening of Cambodia Outlook Conference 2022 under a theme “Revitalising Cambodia: Sustaining Development after COVID19”, held on Thursday (Oct 6) in Phnom Penh.

“As additional inputs for today's conference, Samdech would like to share the thoughts and directions of the RGC as follows:

First, in addition to vaccination, the RGC will further invest in the healthcare sector to develop a strong healthcare system that can help and protect the population from COVID19, as well as other pandemics that may occur in the future;

Second, the development of the social protection system is investing and providing economic security to the people, especially poor and vulnerable families. In this spirit, the RGC will continue to strengthen and expand the coverage of the social assistance and social security systems in a more targeted manner, especially by encouraging and incentivizing those in the informal economy to formalize in order to receive protections;

Third, human resource development in both knowledge and skills is an indispensable factor in boosting economic productivity and shifting the economic structure from a low-skilled and labor-intensive economy to a skill-based and technology-based economy;

Fourth, although Cambodia's economy relies heavily on foreign direct investments and exports, small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are the backbone of the economy, contributing significantly to the creation of occupations and jobs for Cambodian people. In this regards, the RGC has identified the development of SMEs as a top priority, by providing technical and financial supports, improving the business climate, encouraging participations in the formal economy and so on;

Fifth, digital technology has rapidly advanced and become a catalyst for economic growth. At any level of development, digital technology has great and broad potentials to enable emerging or developing economies to embrace new technologies and leapfrog from traditional industries to modern industries in a very short period of time. Therefore, Cambodia must seize this great opportunity by promoting the implementation of the "Cambodia Digital Economy and Society Policy Framework 2021 - 2035", "Cambodia Digital Government Policy 2022 -2035" and other related polices;

Sixth, promoting green economic development and climate resilience are an essential part of assisting sustainable socio-economic development, through supports of the expansion of cooperation on building green infrastructure, promoting energy transitions, using green technology, and so on; and

Seventh, the big tasks I have mentioned above truly require financial resources from both private and public sectors. Therefore, continuing to strengthen stability and diversification of the financial sector, and developing a resilient and inclusive financial sector as a whole, with participation from the private sector, are very crucial. At the same time, the implementation of the Public Financial Management Reform (PFM) Program has achieved good results, allowing the Royal Government to allocate more funds to priority sectors, increasing public investments, saving, promoting Cambodia's independence in terms of budget and implement policies and interventions to help the people and private sector who have been suffering from the COVID19 crisis.”

In this sense, the successful implementation of major objectives of the PFM Program will certainly make a significant contribution to Cambodia's future socio-economic development.
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