South Korea has pledged to help Cambodia tackle some of the main issues affecting the agriculture sector.
The pledge was made during talks last week between Veng Sakhon, Minister of Agriculture and Oh Nak-young, South Korean Ambassador to Cambodia.
Cambodia is a producer of agricultural raw materials, but has limited processing capacity, which has impacted Cambodian exports to South Korea in the past.
There are key challenges that Korean companies face in Cambodia. The governments in Cambodia and South Korea will need to work together to formulate a winning strategy between investors and producers to address those issues, the Korean ambassador said.
“These issues include providing sanitation certificates, export cooperation between state institutions and the private sector, electricity and transportation costs and tax on spare parts, agricultural machinery and high VAT prices, which affect the value of agricultural products,” Mr Nak-young said.
Mr Nak-young said when these issues are resolved, the investment environment will improve.
“The workers in the agricultural sector will be able to return to Cambodia, where they would have the opportunity to work for Korean companies investing in Cambodia,” he added.
Mr Sakhon said Cambodia has very limited capacity to process raw materials, which forces companies to sell unprocessed products directly to buyers abroad, missing out on the opportunity to add value to those products and increase profits.
