October 15, 2004 - Australia welcomes Cambodia's access to WTO
CANBERRA, Oct. 15 (Xinhuanet) -- Australian Trade Minister Mark Ail on Friday welcomed Cambodia's accession to the World Trade Organization. "I congratulate Cambodia on becoming the 148th member of the WTO, almost ten years after it first applied to join," he said in a statement. "Cambodia's membership of the WTO will enhance its capacity, asa least-developed country, to integrate more fully into the global economy and contribute to creating a more open trading environment," he said. As part of the accession process, Cambodia and Australia concluded a bilateral market access agreement that covers current and prospective Australian exports in goods and services, he noted. "While Australia's trade with Cambodia is not large, WTO membership will create a good foundation for developing this trade. "As Cambodia reforms and develops its economy, there will be growing commercial opportunities for Australian companies," Vaile said. Enditem
October 14, 2004 - Leaders congratulate Cambodia’s ASEM membership
Ha Noi (VNA) - Party General Secretary Nong Duc Manh, President Tran Duc Luong and Prime Minister Phan Van Khai all congratulated Prime Minister Hun Sen on Cambodia's admission to the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) at separate receptions in Ha Noi on Saturday. Speaking to Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen, General Secretary Manh said he believed that Cambodia will make positive contributions to ASEM as well as regional and international cooperation. He appreciated Cambodia's s great achievements, especially the recent establishment of a new Government and National Assembly in the country. The Party leader thanked the Cambodian people for their valuable support and assistance to Viet Nam. He reiterated Viet Nam's policy to attach importance to the traditional friendship and cooperation with Cambodia for peace, stability, cooperation and development in the region and the world at large. General Secretary Manh asked PM Hun Sen to convey his best regards to King Norodom Sihanouk, his wife and other Cambodian leaders. PM Hun Sen thanked Viet Nam, host of ASEM 5, for its active support for Cambodia's admission to ASEM together with Laos, Myanmar and ten European countries. He said he hoped for further development of the traditional friendship and comprehensive cooperation between Cambodia and Viet Nam in the interest of the two peoples and for peace, cooperation and development in the region and the world. Talking with PM Hun Sen, President Tran Duc Luong expressed his hope that ASEM membership will help raise Cambodia's role and prestige in regional and international arena. He also congratulated Cambodia on its resolution of political disputes and standoffs to complete the general election as well as ratify the positions in the national assembly and government. President Luong expressed his belief that the Cambodian leaders will work together in stabilising their country to ensure that Cambodia will prosper and its people's living conditions will be further improved. Speaking on the two countries' ties, President Luong said he gave full support for the agreements reached at a recent meeting of the Prime Ministers of Cambodia, Laos and Viet Nam. He added that the implementation of these agreements will contribute to enhancing the traditional cooperation and friendship between the two countries. PM Hun Sen praised Viet Nam's successful organisation of ASEM 5 and thanked Viet Nam's positive support for Cambodia's admission to ASEM. He told his host that Cambodia's admission to ASEM at this Summit in Ha Noi is a great event for his country in its regional and international integration process. On bilateral relations, PM Hun Sen emphasised the need to futher boost the two countries' cooperation in a wide range of areas, especially in economy, culture, trade, and investment in line with their fine friendship and cooperation. He also underlined that Cambodia's full membership of the World Trade Organisation will facilitate the two countries' trade and investment activities. While talking with PM Hun Sen, Prime Minister Phan Van Khai expressed his hope that Cambodia will make active contributions of the ASEM cooperation framework. On raising bilateral multi-faceted cooperation to a new height, PM Khai suggested that Viet Nam and Cambodia select projects to accelerate economic cooperation. He also assured his counterpart that the Vietnamese Government will encourage Vietnamese investor in Cambodia. PM Hun Sen said he hoped that Cambodia and Viet Nam will further boost bilateral cooperation in economics, trade and investment, thus bringing the two countries' friendship and multi-faceted cooperation to a new height.-Enditem
October 13, 2004 - Textile producing nations want protection against India, China
Business India > Washington, Oct 1 : Ten countries, including Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, are demanding protection from the World Trade Organisation against "textile superpowers" China and India when textile quota regime comes to an end on January one, 2005. The countries, which heavily depend on textiles, want "special trade deals" to protect them from a free-for-all regime, which they fear would help only China and India. Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Mauritius, Macau, Cambodia, El Salvador, Dominican Republic and Tunisia are making an "eleventh hour appeal to the WTO to save their industries from being overwhelmed by textile production superpowers such as China and India," the Wall Street Journal reported today. Otherwise, they fear their textile trade, which in many cases represent half to three-quarters of their exports, will evaporate when quotas are abolished on January 1. They claimed that export of apparel and textiles account for 85.9 per cent of Bangladesh's merchandise exports; 72.1 pc of Pakistan; 54.3 pc of Sri Lanka; 48.7 pc of Nepal 8.4 pc of Macao; 72.5pc of Cambodia; 60.2 pc of El Salvador; 56.6 pc of Mauritius and 50.9 pc of Dominican Republic. In Bangladesh, at least 25 per cent of the two million workers engaged in this sector will be out of job with no alternative source of income, the country's trade attache to Brussels, Fazlul Chowdhury said. The plan to end the quotas by 2005 was agreed by 123 nations participating in the Uruguay Round of trade talks in 1995. PTI
October 13, 2004 - Cambodia officially joins WTO
GENEVA, Switzerland, Oct. 13 (UPI) -- The World Trade Organization Wednesday admitted Cambodia as its 148th member country. The Geneva-based organization said Cambodia is the second-least developed country to join the WTO after Nepal, which became a member in April. The total number of least-developed countries in the WTO now comes to 32, the agency said. There are still 24 countries currently negotiating membership with the WTO, including Russia, Saudi Arabia, and Vietnam.
October 12, 2004 -Cambodia to become WTO's 148th member
GENEVA, Oct. 12 (Xinhuanet) -- Cambodia will formally join the World Trade Organization (WTO) on Wednesday, becoming the global trade body's 148th member. Cambodia's formal accession comes 30 days after its lawmakers ratified the membership accord and submitted the documents to the WTO on Sept. 13, the WTO said Tuesday. Cambodia applied to join the WTO in 1994 and was admitted at the organization's fifth ministerial meeting in Cancun, Mexico, last September. Due to the delayed formation of a government since a political crisis last July, the country missed the March 2004 deadline to ratify the accord to gain full membership. The deadline was then postponed by the WTO to September 2004. Cambodia and Nepal, whose accession was agreed at the same meeting in Cancun, are the first two least developed members of the WTO since its formation in 1995. The Geneva-based trade body was evolved from the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), which already had 29 least developed economies among its signing partners. Twenty-five more economies have started or are about to begin WTO accession talks, including Russia, Saudi Arabia and Ukraine. Enditem
October 8, 2004 - Child Mortality Rising Fast in Parts of Asia-U.N.
By Karishma Vyas
BANGKOK (Reuters) - Child mortality rates are spiraling in parts of Asia because of financially crippled public health care systems, a U.N. report said on Friday. An increasing reliance on privatized health care and the stripping back of state hospitals was endangering the health of thousands of mothers and children, a senior United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) official said. "An aggressive increase in privatization and a system where the user has to fully pay for health care means that the poor tend to drop out of the picture," Dr Steve Atwood, UNICEF'S Regional Adviser for Health and Nutrition, told Reuters. "People tend to view health as an income-generating activity that doesn't require government funding. This unfortunately divides people into those who can pay for the service and those who can't," he said. Atwood pointed to the dramatic increase in child deaths in Cambodia since the country began a privatization drive. UNICEF estimates that one in seven children die in Cambodia before they reach the age of five and has listed the country among the top 10 that have failed to make a dent in child mortality. The others are Iraq, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Swaziland, Kenya, Cameroon, Ivory Coast, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Atwood accused private health services of "sponging" much-need resources away from public facilities already devastated by cutbacks. "We see the same problem in the West. When the private schools, private hospitals crop up, they sponge resources away from the public sector. The best doctors, the best equipment, the best facilities," he said. While raising concerns about the "unregulated privatization" drives in China, Vietnam, Mongolia and Cambodia, Atwood praised Malaysia for slashing its child mortality rate by eight per cent since 1990. Political commitment to state health care was the key to Malaysia's success and the investment had helped the country sustain its economic boom, he said. UNICEF's assessment comes during the launch of a new report on global child mortality rates. The Progress for Children report says more than half of the countries in East Asia and the Pacific will fail to meet the UN Millennium Development Goal of reducing child mortality by two-thirds by 2015. The UN agency called on governments to invest greater resources in state health services, especially in rural communities where it said access was woefully inadequate.
October 8, 2004 - Protection of Cambodia's Timber, Wildlife Gains Ground
Ron Corben Bangkok 06 Oct 2004, 13:10 UTC
Cambodia's timber and animal wildlife have long been the targets of poachers. Now a conference on international conservation has been told that efforts by Cambodian park rangers are scoring successes in protecting the country's resources. Chey Yuthearith is the director of Bokor National Park in southern Cambodia. He and his team of 50 rangers have been attacked and had hand grenades thrown at them in their fight against poachers of timber and animal wildlife. The poachers and armed loggers have included corrupt police and military units. During Cambodia's years of civil war in the 1960s and '70s, the communist Khmer Rouge gave foreign companies access to timber resources deep inside the country. The plundering of timber became rampant during the 1990's, until the government of Prime Minister Hun Sen passed legislation in 2001 in an effort to halt the activity. Regions once under the control of the Khmer Rouge have been turned into protected forest areas including the one-million-acre Central Cardomoms Mountain Forest. In recent years, efforts have also been made by the World Bank and other agencies to better manage Cambodia's forests and timber industries. But for Mr. Yuthearith, the park director, dangers remain in doing his job. "Most danger for me is when illegal logging and poaching and some land encroachment from senior (military) officers," Mr. Yuthearith said. "So I try to solve the problem day to day for a decrease in the illegal activities." Mr. Yuthearith and his rangers were one of several groups and individuals honored this week for their wildlife law enforcement work. The awards were given at the conference in Bangkok on the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species, also known as CITES. The Bokor National Park rangers have been receiving assistance and advice from international conservation organizations such as WildAid, and Mr. Yuthearith says he would like to see more funds from international donors. A WildAid director, Tim Redford, says Cambodia has made marked progress in its fight to stem illegal logging and protect the country's wildlife. "When we first started working in Cambodia, the situation was very bad, and the national protected system was in ruins," Mr. Redford said. "Now, as awareness and more interest in Cambodia is growing, there's more resources coming into the country." But Mr. Redford warns that more habitat and resources will be lost as long as regional demand remains high for illegally-obtained wildlife and timber.
October 8, 2004 - Vietnamese farm produce to Cambodia up 30 pecent
Phnom Penh (VNA) - Viet Nam has exported to Cambodia 126 million USD worth of fresh vegetables and fruits so far this year, up 30 percent from the same period, the Cambodia Daily reported on Tuesday. The paper quoted Ngou Chheang, chief of Koh Thom district, Kandal province, as saying that his district plans to ask Vietnamese agronomists to transfer farming techniques to Cambodian farmers.
October 5, 2004 - Prince Of Norway Visits Cambodia On A Special UN Mission
5 October, Phnom Penh, Cambodia -- Crown Prince Haakon of Norway, who is a Goodwill Ambassador of the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), began a four-day trip to Cambodia today to advocate for bridging the poverty gap in Cambodia. He will talk with garment workers, youth leaders and community members in Phnom Penh, Kampong Chnang and Siem Reap. He will also meet with Prime Minister Hun Sen, women parliamentarians, senior government officials and UN representatives. The Crown Prince chose Cambodia for his trip because it is considered a priority country in need of urgent action in order to meet the Millennium Development Goals – the set of time-bound and quantifiable targets aimed at reducing poverty, hunger, disease, illiteracy, environmental degradation and discrimination – agreed to by world leaders in 2000. “Perhaps the most important question of our time is the question of how the differences between the rich and the poor have become so huge and why we have not yet been able to stop this. But, it is indeed possible to change the situation,” says the Crown Prince, in his role as UNDP Goodwill Ambassador. “Development is all about people,” said the Crown Prince at a press conference today in Phnom Penh. “It’s up to the Cambodian people to find their way on how to develop their country. Development is a long-term project which unfortunately does not happen over night. It needs to be built stone by stone , day by day. That is why coordination and preparation of the efforts of the Cambodian Government, the UN, the bilateral donors and NGOs is so important. My visit here is only one small part of this effort,” he said. Included in his trip will be a visit to the QMI factory in Phnom Penh, which has its head office, Quint Major Industrial Co., in Thailand. It was recently visited by actress Minnie Driver, as part of a fair trade campaign. The factory has 8,000 workers, 90 percent of whom are women. During the course of the week, he will also visit community fisheries in the Tonle Sap Biosphere Reserve where he will see community-based natural resource management and conservation efforts. Also included in the field visits, will be participation in a “community conversation” on HIV/AIDS in the Commune of Prek Dak. These gatherings bring communities members together to talk openly about stigma and discrimination, care and treatment of people living with HIV/AIDS. Cambodia’s progress toward meeting the Millennium Development Goals is mixed. Access to primary education has improved over the last decade and HIV prevalence fell from 3.3 percent to 2.6 percent from 1997-2002. But child mortality has risen over the past 10 years and progress on maternal mortality has been limited. The international targets call for reducing child mortality by two-thirds and maternal mortality by three-quarters by 2015. The Cambodia Millennium Development Goals Report released earlier this year says that for those particular goals to be met, decisive action needs to be taken to reduce the high rate of malnutrition, increase the number of trained health workers, improve access to health care, provide adequate funding to the health sector, and strengthen public financial management. “Bearing in mind Cambodia’s difficult past, it is impressive how far Cambodia has come in such a short time,” said the Crown Prince. He noted that the Millennium Development Goals are at the core of Norway’s newly developed Action Plan for Combating Poverty, and that the government has taken the goals as its guiding principle in all its development cooperation.
October 4, 2004 - Assembly Speaker Goes on Southeast Asia Trip
National Assembly Speaker Kim One-ki will leave for Southeast Asia on Wednesday for visits to Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Cambodia until Oct. 21, Kim’s aides said Monday. Kim’s itinerary will take him to Thailand from Oct. 7 to 9, then Malaysia (Oct. 10-12), Singapore (Oct. 13-15) and Cambodia (Oct. 16-19). He returns home Oct. 21 via Vietnam, they said. In the Southeast Asian countries, Kim will meet with heads of state and parliamentary leaders to discuss issues of mutual concern, they explained. He will be accompanied by four ruling and opposition party lawmakers. They said Kim has consulted with President Roh Moo-hyun and Prime Minister Lee Hae-chan to work out his itinerary. Roh will visit India and Vietnam this week, while Lee is to visit Hungary, Austria and Germany from Oct. 13 to 19.
October 1, 2004 - Transonic expands Indochina operations
Airline and travel industry provider Transonic Travel Ltd has announced it would expand its Indochina operations, opening a new representative office in Phnom Penh. A second Cambodian office will open in Siem Reap in October, taking the company's Asian offices to four, with two already existing in Vietnam. Transonic chief executive Peter Lacaze said the expansion into Cambodia was a logical step in consolidating the company's leading position in the region. "The Travel Indochina business has experienced significant organic growth in the last 10 years, driven predominantly by increased tourism from Australian travellers into Vietnam and Cambodia," Mr Lacaze said. "Having a stronger presence on the ground in this market will ensure we continue to grow our operations and deliver superior ground content." Transonic had also launched a new independent travel brand, Handmade Holidays, to deliver tailored, small-group tours for travellers who want more than an anonymous seat-on-coach experience, Mr Lacaze said. "Outbound travel from Australia, which accounts for 85 per cent of Transonic's business, is forecast to increase by six per cent in each of the next five years," he said."Developing innovative products for emerging destinations is key to Transonic's strategy of capitalising on this growth."
October 1, 2004 - ChevronTexaco to Begin Cambodia Drilling
|
