Phnom Penh - 31 October 2013: Cambodia is confident it will become a higher middle income country by 2030 and a high income country by 2050

With its current progressive and sustainable economic policy, according to H.E. Sun Chanthol, Senior Minister, Ministry of Commerce, the Kingdom of Cambodia. "In order to meet these visions, the Royal Government is determined to maintain and accelerate a broad-based, sustainable, and equitable economic growth, to achieve an average GDP growth of 7 percent per annum during the next few years."

In his opening remark, H.E. Sun Chanthol also said that Cambodia will continue to deepen its economic integration with ASEAN. He encouraged the Cambodian officials and public to acquaint themselves with the ongoing economic dynamic in ASEAN, East Asia and the world.

A total of 300 Cambodian officials and representatives from private sectors and educational institutes attended the two-day capacity building seminar on RCEP, competition law, consumer protection, IPR "Strengthening Cambodia's Competitiveness in Regional Integration", organized by the Economic Research Institute for ASEAN and East Asia (ERIA) and the Ministry of Commerce of Cambodia.The two-day seminar will focus on the ASEAN effort to establish Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) which ASEAN has taken the lead. Other issues include the protection of intellectual property right as well as the competitiveness with the introduction of competition law and consumer protection.

"Cambodia's economic development has been impressive. It will benefit even more with increased competitiveness and join broader economic cooperative framework such as RCEP," said Prof. Hidetoshi Nishimura, Executive Director of ERIA. "In the Mid-Term Review, ERIA provided recommendations for the way forward towards realization of the AEC. As one of the recommendations, we proposed that the RCEP should be completed by 2015. And now, we are trying to provide a direction to the RCEP negotiations. I believe that our capacity building program will contribute to the development of capacities for this country and the region."ERIA has invited local and regional scholars and experts on economic integration and competitiveness for the capacity building seminar.

Prof. Inkyo Cheong, Professor of Economics at Inha University, Incheon, South Korea will discuss how far East Asia would like to go with the RCEP. Mr. Yoshifumi Fukunaga, Senior Policy Coordinator of ERIA will focus on how ASEAN should move forward FTAs towards RCEP.

Cambodian speakers will include Mr. Oknha Te Taingpor, President, Federation of Associations for Small and Medium Enterprises of Cambodia and Dr. Var Roth San, Head of Intellectual Property Rights, Ministry of Commerce.H.E. Dr. Sok Siphana, Managing Partner, Sok Siphana & Associates will speak on how the IPR protection will impact on Cambodia's economic development. Other speakers come from Japan, Malaysia and Thailand.

The seminar is a part of long-standing capacity building program since 2008 initiated by ERIA for the new ASEAN members (Cambodia, Lao PDR, Myanmar and Vietnam) on their efforts to integrate their economies with ASEAN.

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Cambodia Aims High on Economic Growth