Cambodia’s Prime Minister, Hun Sen, has outlined the government’s new strategies for the development of the agriculture sector to create the fifth economic pole in the northeast part of the country
Addressing the closing ceremony for the annual meeting of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF), Sen said the MAFF has to invest in the development of pure seedlings of plants and varieties of animals that will respond to the market demands, resilient against the changing climates and black beetles and higher productive.
To push further production of pure Phka Romduol seedlings at a quantity that can respond to the market demand — both domestic and overseas, Sen handed more than 100 rice paddy seedling transplanting machines to communities.
“These machines have to be deployed at seedlings production regions only as this is a very important factor and so we have to push it,” Sen commented, adding that officials need to expedite the preparation and implement the plan for creating Cambodia’s economic pole 4 in the northwest part of the country to be known as the ‘fish-rice corridor’.
The Premier said that the fourth economic pole that encompasses the Pursat, Battambang, Banteay Meanchey and Pailin provinces will be created to attract both local and foreign investors to develop producing, processing and exporting to Cambodia’s agricultural products and fishes, including aquaculture and livestock to China and other international markets.
While Phnom Penh, Preah Sihanouk and Siem Reap will remain as the first, second and third economic poles respectively, the fifth economic pole would be created in the northeast part of Cambodia which would cover Kratie, Stung Treng, Ratanakiri and Mondulkiri provinces.
Sen also asked the officials to accelerate the development of a plan to recruit and assign agriculture officials to provide technical support to farmers in each commune or quarter across the nation adequately without delay for the next government to include in its seventh legislature of the National Assembly.
Furthermore, he said that the strategy has been being tested in 10 communes of the Choeung Prey district of the Kampong Cham province, adding that prospective agriculture officials to be deployed at communes or quarters should be recruited among locals to gain from their knowledge and experience.
“Those who are not from local provinces always ignore the province they are in charge of and so we need to pay higher attention to this point… I also suggest that provincial governors have to take care of those agriculture officials who will be sent out there. The farther they go, the more money they would be offered, but they have to cooperate with one another,” added Sen.
He also stated that officials need to join hands to implement the cashew policy to develop Cambodia as an empire of cashew, while MAFF and the Agricultural and Rural Development Bank (ARDB) are responsible for technical and financing issues and investment in opening overseas markets for cashew products will be under the Ministry of Commerce and economic diplomacy teams of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation.
Cambodia’s cashew exports have recently reached 1.18 million tons to surpass Côte d'Ivoire’s 1.1 million tons.
