China News Agency, Phnom Penh, November 16 (reporter Ouyang Kaiyu) – the Cambodian Ministry of agriculture, forestry and Fisheries said on the 16th that in order to promote economic recovery after the epidemic, the government will focus on supporting agricultural development and give relevant policies and financial support in this field.
According to the draft novel coronavirus pneumonia policy under the new normal economic development policy released by Kampuchea, the revitalization and recovery strategy of the new economy will focus on four major economic areas, namely agriculture, tourism, garment industry and non garment manufacturing.
It is reported that at present, Cambodia’s agriculture accounts for 54.7% of the employed population, and 60% of the country’s population lives in rural areas. Agriculture plays an important role in Cambodia’s economic development. However, over the years, the growth of this important economic pillar has been slow. Since 2015, the growth rate of agriculture has hovered around 1%, and only increased by 0.4% in 2020 due to the impact of the epidemic. Officials predict that the growth rate will be between 1% and 1.3% from 2021 to 2023.
Analysts pointed out that the main factors leading to the slow development of agriculture in Cambodia include the lack of infrastructure, such as water conservancy and irrigation, roads and power supply, so that most farmers can only rely on rice planting, and the production cost remains high due to the high electricity price and logistics.
Cambodian Minister of agriculture, forestry and fishery ong SAKUN said that Cambodia’s agricultural field has deep development potential. In order to help solve problems in the agricultural field and further promote the development of this field, the government plans to implement a number of supporting measures in 2022.
Among them, the Cambodian government plans to allocate US $250 million next year to provide preferential loans to small and medium-sized enterprises listed in priority areas through the small and medium-sized enterprise bank and the agricultural and rural development bank, with an annual interest rate of 5% to 5.5%. At the same time, it provides guarantees for loans in the agricultural field through the Cambodian credit guarantee agency to encourage banks and financial institutions to extend loans to this field, At the same time, solve the problem of farmers’ lack of collateral.
Weng SAKUN pointed out that the government will also inject capital into large-scale modern agricultural projects by providing matching grants. For example, the greenhouse vegetable garden covering an area of more than 5 hectares can inject up to 40% of the investment.
In addition, the Cambodian government will exempt or suspend the collection of value-added tax or import tax on imported agricultural equipment, including insect killing and disinfection equipment, as well as refrigerated containers used to export fresh fruits.
Source: China News Network
Post time: Nov-19-2021