Siem Reap, 11-12 June 2024: Financial services, a priority sector for growth in Cambodia, are one of the sector-specific annexes in the ASEAN Trade in Services Agreement (ATISA) that came into force in 2021. A major feature of ATISA is the revamping of market access from a positive to a negative-list scheduling approach. Under the agreement, Cambodia has 13 years to complete its negative list and schedule of non-conforming measures (NCMs) from their current AFAS Schedules of Commitments.

At the request of the Royal Government of Cambodia, ERIA was pleased to co-host a two-day workshop with the Ministry of Economy and Finance on, ‘Developing the ASEAN Schedule of Non-Conforming Measures under ATISA: Negative List Approach (Financial Services).’  

The 2-day workshop was facilitated by Yap Lai Peng, a former Head of Division at the ASEAN Secretariat and official at the Ministry of Investment, Trade and Industry (MITI). The workshop included presentations, discussions and training exercise on non-conforming measures (NCMs) with participants having to identify what constitutes NCMs and regulatory measures in the financial services sector.

The workshop was attended by 22 participants. In addition to participants from the Ministry of Economy and Finance and Ministry of Commerce, the workshop was attended by officials from the National Bank of Cambodia, the Securities and Exchange Regulator of Cambodia (SERC), and the Insurance Regulator of Cambodia (IRC), in line with the financial services focus of the workshop.

The workshop was opened by Jeremy Gross, ERIA’s Director of Mekong Affairs and Capacity Building. In his opening comments, he highlighted the importance of promoting understanding of the negative list approach and supporting Cambodia’s schedule of NCMs and to meet its deadline.