New York (FN), Sep. 24 – Cambodian prime minister Hun Manet said that the Royal Government of Cambodia does not abandon the poor and that the Royal Government has further implemented social protection policies to help improve the lives of low-income citizens.

The premier spoke during his meeting with Cambodians living in the US and Canada on 23 September 2023.

"The previous measures of the Royal Government were to pay attention to the poor citizens. In the past, we helped them by issuing equity cards or poor cards, with the Ministry of Planning assessing the living standard of eligible citizens," the premier underscored.

Samdech Thipadei continued that the government committed to advance universal health coverage, which aims to (1) provide health care to more than 400,000 vulnerable families, equivalent to a total of 1.5 million members; (2) expand the social protection program voluntarily, taking into account the families of civil servants, workers, and their family members.

In the future, the government will continue to expand social protection policy so that more than 7.4 million vulnerable people can benefit from this program.

At the same time, the Royal Government will provide training to approximately 1.5 million young people from poor and vulnerable households nationwide. In addition, the Royal Government, under the leadership of the Cambodian People's Party (CPP), is also committed to implementing tax-free policy for farmers' farmland.

Samdech Thipadei highlighted that in 1997, Cambodia had a poverty rate of 54 percent, while the current poverty rate is only 17 percent.

On the occasion, premier Hun Manet pointed out that the Royal Government will make efforts to increase the living standard of the citizens in order to make Cambodia achieve its goal of becoming a high-income country by 2050.

According to the National Council for Social Protection, in the past, the Health Equity Fund provided equity cards to about 700,000 families, or 2.8 million people.
=FRESH NEWS