Ministry of Commerce secretary of state Long Kemvichet leads the meeting, with UNCTAD secretary-general Rebeca Grynspan and representatives of other member nations in attendance. PERMANENT MISSION OF CAMBODIA TO WTO
Cambodia is chairing a working group at the 84th Session of the UN Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD). The working group focuses on programme planning for assisting developing and least developed countries with socio-economic growth.
The conference is scheduled to run from October 3-7 in Geneva, Switzerland.
Ministry of Commerce secretary of state Long Kemvichet leads the meeting, with UNCTAD secretary-general Rebeca Grynspan and representatives of other member nations in attendance.
Kemvichet expressed his gratitude for the honor of Cambodia’s appointment as chair.
He said the Kingdom intends to contribute to the building of multilateralism. It is also prepared to implement the three pillars of UNCTAD: research and analysis, consensus building and technical cooperation.
Established in 1964, UNCTAD aims to promote the development-friendly integration of emerging countries into the global economy. It has evolved into a forum for policy discussion and development considerations, with a particular focus on domestic policy and international action. UNCTAD has a total of 195 member countries and has implemented about 204 projects in 70 countries.
Kong Sokheng, deputy consular mission’s commercial counselor, made a statement on behalf of Cambodia. He expressed the Kingdom’s support for the work of UNCTAD in its efforts to assist emerging nations. These countries faced many challenge, including limited competition, a lack of productivity and capacity development, and a low level of industrialisation, all of which UNCTAD had helped to mitigate.
Sokheng requested that UNCTAD adopt the Bridgetown Agreement – which documented the outcomes of last year’s 15th UNCTAD Ministerial Meeting – and the Doha Action Plan for the Least Developed Countries (DPOA) 2022-2031, to link to the implementation of its activities.
Last year, Cambodia discussed how multilateralism could contribute to the least developed countries and raised challenges such as inequality of access to Covid-19 vaccines, external threats by markets and exports of least developed countries, and the digital gap between developed and developing nations. The Kingdom called on UNCTAD to address these issues and provide more trade assistance.
