Industrial development vital to ensure sustainable growth: Cambodian PM

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said Wednesday the promotion of industrial sectors will be necessary to ensure the sustainable development of Cambodian economic growth.

"There is an urgent need for Cambodia to modernize its economy through promoting the development of industrial sector in order to achieve a sustainable growth," he said during opening the fourth Cambodian Economic Forum.

Cambodia's economic growth was 5.5 percent in 2010 thanks to garment manufacture, tourism and agriculture, he said, adding that the growth this year could be more than 6 percent.

The premier said that the development of the industrial sectors should be focused on capturing more value added of existing core sectors such as in garment industry through establishing raw material factories such as a buttons manufacturing factory and in agriculture via building processing plants.

Also on Cambodia's emerging industries such as furniture, handicrafts, paper/recycled paper, construction materials, household appliances, simple electronic equipment, oil and gas, mineral ores and fertilizer, he said.

"These industries need to be closely studied to assess whether they can be competitive in the domestic and export markets," he said.

"I am confident that Cambodia now has appropriate favorable conditions to move forward to the next higher development stage," he said.

Qimiao Fan, Country Manager of the World Bank-Cambodia, said during the opening ceremony that Cambodia has abundant land favorable for agriculture, tourism development, mining biodiversity conservation, housing, urbanization and infrastructure.

"With these potentials, Cambodia still lags in terms of skills - - both soft skills like attitude to work and technical skills," he said.

The two-day forum was under the theme "Cambodian Economy in post-crisis environment: industrial policy -- option toward a sustainable development".

It was attended by some 500, who are government's policy makers, economists, development partners, World Bank, Asian Development Bank and United Nations Development Program.

Source: Xinhua .