Phnom Penh (VNA) – Cambodia and China will holdthe first official consultation on the feasibility of a bilateral free tradeagreement (FTA) on December 3 in Beijing, revealed the Chinese Embassy in Phnom Penh.
“This comes as a special arrangement in light of thefriendly relations between China and Cambodia,” theembassy said on a Facebook post.
“Theministries of commerce of the two countries have previously established acontact mechanism at the working level and maintained close communication,” itsaid.
Sok Sopheak,Secretary of State at the Cambodian Ministry of Commerce, confirmed thebeginning of negotiations to Khmer Times.
He pointedout that the only free trade agreement in place with China is at themultilateral level. The existing ASEAN-China FTA, however, is not enough tomeet the trade potential between the countries, he said.
Sopheak said that the Cambodia-China FTA is not unusual because thiskind of agreement exists between countries such as Indonesia and Japan, thePhilippines and Japan and Singapore and Japan.
The deal will give more opportunities and market access between the twocountries and beyond what exists in the ASEAN-China FTA, Sopheak said.
Trade betweenCambodia and China reached 7.4 billion USD in 2018. Cambodia exported 1.3billion USD worth of goods to the Chinese market, an increase of 37 percent.Thetwo countries aim to reach 10 billion USD in trade a year by 2023./.
