The European Union and the Kingdom of Cambodia, on Monday, have agreed to continue strengthening trade relation between the two governments. Particularly, the EU, with its Generalized System of Preferences (GSP), promised to keep providing lower tax tariffs for products made in Cambodia.
According to the Cambodian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, a delegation from the European Economic and Monetary Union (EUROPA), led by Mr. Werner Langen, met with Foreign Minister Prak Sokhon on Monday at the ministry's building, to talk about the above issue.
After the meeting, Mr. Chum Sunry, spokesman for the ministry, told reporters that the EU would like to increase the size of their bilateral trade with Cambodia, although the size of the trade between the two governments already reached more than $5,000 million last year.
Mr. Sunry added that the EU still wanted to buy Cambodian rice and products from Cambodian garment sector with low tax tariffs or no tax at all. The EU also promised to help Cambodia enhance its education system, natural resource management, and a number of other sectors. Nevertheless, the EU has already provided grants of about €400 million to Cambodia to be used to develop the country from 2014 to 2020.
However, the spokesman said that during the discussion, Minister Prak Sokhon informed the delegation about the arrest of the opposition leader Kem Sokha, the closure of the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and a number of local radios due to the fact that those groups had violated the law, and what the government did was only to enforce the law.
In response, Mr. Sunry said that the EU was impressed by the current progress in Cambodia, and they said thank to the Cambodian government for inviting them to observe the upcoming general election in July 2018.
In a meeting with Mr. Ith Samheng, Minister of Labor and Vocational Training, on October 6, US Ambassador to Cambodia William A. Heidt and EU Ambassador to Cambodia George Edgar said that the US and the EU would not link Cambodian efforts in reforming working condition to the current tension in Cambodian politics. In contrast, the US and the EU would continue to allow Cambodia to increasingly export their products to their powerful markets.
During the meeting, the two ambassadors also mentioned about the ministry's success in setting the minimum wage of $170 for Cambodian workers for the year 2018. To the US and the EU, this minimum wage was the achievement from a smooth and with consensus from all parties concerned.
As a result, the US and the EU urged Cambodia to keep using this tri-party mechanism in discussion regarding working condition, respect for freedom of NGO, labor dispute etc.
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