Country Director's speech at TRADE workshop

Speech of Ms. Elena Tischenko, UNDP Country Director

at the “T.R.A.D.E. Project 2006-2010” Workshop

Achievements, Challenges and Lessons

27th January 2011

Excellency Senior Minister, Minister of Commerce Cham Prasidh

Excellencies Distinguished participants, Ladies and Gentlemen

I would like to begin by thanking His Excellency Cham Prasidh , Senior Minister-Minister of Commerce for organizing this timely meeting to review the results of the TRADE project.  I believe it is always useful for partners, at the end of a five-year journey, to gather and take stock of what has been accomplished.  The TRADE project implemented through collaboration between the Ministry of Commerce and UNDP is closing with many positive accomplishments, and we should be proud of what we have done together.

As you know, UNDP’s partnership with the Royal Government of Cambodia stresses a number of priorities including:

• Poverty reduction and meeting Cambodia’s MDGs;
• Increased Aid Coordination and Aid Effectiveness; and,
• Capacity development among our Cambodian partner organizations.

Allow me to point to several areas where I believe TRADE has contributed to meeting those priorities.

Cambodia Trade Integration Strategywas prepared in 2006 and early 2007 through a partnership between the Ministry of Commerce and UNDP, in collaboration with other development partners.  The Strategy clearly pointed to the need for making trade-sector development an instrument of poverty-reduction and human development. 

Agriculture was identified as an area of focus as Cambodia utilizes about 30% of its land for agriculture, and about 30% of its GDP is generated from agriculture, forestry and fisheries. The farming population comprises about 70% of the total population of 14.5 million making agriculture a key sector in Cambodia that plays a very important role in the society and the economy.  Cambodia Trade integration Strategy has selected priority sectors for export expansion and diversification which focused on many agricultural commodities. 

In the implementation of the TRADE project the Government firmly embraced the priorities of poverty reduction and human development as demonstrated by its ongoing efforts to boost exports in such sectors as rice, cassava, cashew nuts. Livelihoods of approximately 2.5 million farmers depend on the production of these commodities, their effective processing and export.

By diversifying exports beyond the traditional sectors of Garment and Tourism –and by increasing the focus on agricultural exports, there is an opportunity for Cambodia to deepen the positive impact of international trade on rural communities and support the country’s efforts to meet the CMDG targets by 2015.  Of course, Garment and Tourism remain sectors of critical importance for the achievement of the MDGs.

The preparation of the 2007 Cambodia Trade Integration Strategy was also an opportunity to encourage greater coordination between development partners and the Government.  As we all know, several development partners contributed to the preparation of the Strategy, which created a solid foundation for the much larger Trade SWAp, launched by the Government in early 2008.

UNDP is committed to the Paris Principles of Aid Effectiveness and worked hard, jointly, with the Ministry of Commerce to align the TRADE project with the Trade SWAp and to use the TRADE project as a means to facilitate the alignment of efforts supported by Development Partners with the Trade SWAp.  While we recognize that it will take more time to generate full synergies among Development Partners around the objectives of the Trade SWAp, UNDP is proud to have worked alongside with the Ministry of Commerce to encourage greater Aid Coordination in the trade sector.  At the request of the Royal Government of Cambodia, UNDP also provided support to the development of Trade SWAp Pillars 2 and 3 focusing on priority products and services for export supply development and capacity development for TRADE SWAp management.   We are hopeful that these pillars will provide a solid foundation and useful instruments for the implementation of Trade SWAp going forward.

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

Enhanced Aid Effectiveness is also about greater ownership of the Aid process by Government. To strengthen national capacities in aid management and coordination, the TRADE project joined forces with Ministry officials in the Department of International Cooperation to develop capacity of this brand new department and to ensure that this capacity would support the Government’s efforts to take greater leadership in coordinating and managing Aid for Trade.  Again, we recognize that capacity building is an on-going process, and that some of the efforts started under TRADE will need to be continued by the Ministry with support from others.

Another area of capacity development has been strengthening export supply.   Such capacity involves fostering public and private sector institutions that can provide support to producers and exporters.  Through the Value Chain Unit, the TRADE project began to address some of the pressing needs of exporters and government departments for improved trade information. Through the partnership between the Ministry of Commerce and Royal School of Administration, the TRADE project was able to begin addressing capacity needs of the Provincial Departments of Commerce, as well as some select product associations involved in the production and export of rice, cassava, cashews and prahoc.

The TRADE project allowed for pioneering joint missions of rice millers and government officials to West Africa and Europe and opened the door for the signature of contracts that  amount to  approximately 48,000 tons of rice annually One of the main purposes of such exposures was to develop business relationships to enable Cambodian millers to better understand potential markets. We are glad to see that this has inspired the Government’s Rice Export Policy and that further contacts and visits are now taking place.

Ministry of Commerce led a trade mission of cassava producers to China in 2008 to explore markets and processing technology, leading to the establishment of links between cassava producers and Chinese intermediaries. The project further facilitated the visit of the Ministry’s officials to Vietnam to learn from the experiences of Vietrade, Vietnam Trade Promotion Agency, as well as the rice milling visits to Belgium, Germany and Poland in 2010 to explore possibilities of rice export to Europe free of tariffs. Those are just a few examples of the growing momentum and increasing international links that the TRADE project has helped to create with regard to these key commodities.

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

We firmly believe that the foundations for successful trade development with impact on poverty reduction in Cambodia have now been laid, and our partnership through the TRADE project was instrumental in this. We also believe that this is still  the initial stage  of a much longer journey. The Ministry of Commerce has forged new partnerships and attracted new resources over the last years, which will support Cambodia on this journey. Further leadership and coordination will be required to ensure the effectiveness of these partnerships and carry on the momentum that our cooperation has created.

UNDP’s, next Country Programme will be specifically geared towards the support to achieving the CMDGs by 2015 While we may not retain as a prominent role with Ministry of Commerce or in Trade SWAp as we had over the past five years, we will continue to support the Royal Government of Cambodia  to increase Aid Coordination and focus in the trade sector, by ensuring that our MDG acceleration efforts are also aligned with Trade SWAp.

Allow me to conclude by recognizing the efforts of all the partner institutions and colleagues who have contributed to the success of TRADE project. Without the strong leadership by H.E. Senior Minister Cham Prasidh , and commitment and dedicated support of Excellencies Pan Sorasak and Mao Thora, Ministry of Commerce officials, advisors, development partners and our dedicated staff in UNDP Poverty Team,    the success of the project would not be possible.

THANK YOU