President of Cambodia’s Senate Say Chhum (L) greets visiting Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee of China’s National People’s Congress (NPC) Arken Imirbaki prior to their meeting in Phnom Penh (Photo:akp.gov.kh)Vice Chairman of the Standing Committee of China's National People's Congress (NPC) Arken Imirbaki visited Cambodia from September 16-18 to bolster bilateral ties as well as collaboration between the two legislatures.
Meeting with Cambodia National Assembly President Heng Samrin, President of the Senate Say Chhhum and Prime Minister Hun Sen, Arken Imirbaki spoke highly of progresses Cambodia has made over the past time and asserted China ’s commitment to expanding cooperation with Cambodia ’s legislative agencies.
China will continue support for Cambodia in social-economic development programmes in an attempt to consolidate and enhance the comprehensive partnership relation between the two countries, he said.
The Cambodian leaders described Arken Imirbaki’s visit as a contribution to developing the traditional relationship between the two countries, which has been defined by their leaders as “comprehensive strategic cooperation”.
Heng Samrin suggested China open its market for Cambodia ’s agricultural products while increasing investment and tourist arrivals to the Southeast Asian nation.
Meanwhile, Hun Sen underscored that Cambodia and China should continue to step up economic-trade and investment connections in order to raise bilateral trade to 5 billion USD by 2017.
China is currently an important investor in Cambodia with about 10 billion USD. It is also a leading official development assistance provider for Cambodia in the fields of infrastructure development, defence capacity enhancement and human resources training.-VNA
