Cambodia will need about $17.558 billion over 2022-2024 to invest in the “general industrial sector”, which includes the mining; manufacturing; electricity, gas and water; and construction sub-sectors, according to a report on the Three Year Rolling Public Investment Programme (PIP) 2022-2024 from the Ministry of Planning.

The construction sub-sector will require the lion’s share of investment at $9.270 billion, followed by manufacturing ($6.018 billion) and electricity, gas and water cumulatively at $1.984 billion, the report said.

Broken down by years, the “public industrial sector” will demand $5.372 billion in capital investment this year, $5.917 billion in 2023, and $6.269 billion in 2024.

Additionally, the Kingdom will require $13.221 billion to invest in the services sector, which comprises the trade, hotels and restaurants (tourism), transportation and telecommunications, finance, public administration and real estate sub-sectors.

The report added that $4.297 billion will be needed for the agriculture, forestry and fisheries sector. A major part is to be earmarked for rice crop production, with a special focus on a 2022-2024 government policy designed to bolster milled-rice exports, it said.

Despite the Covid-19 crisis, the government has kept building public buildings, bridges, roads and other infrastructure as part of its vision of transforming Cambodia into a high-middle-income country by 2030 and a high-income economy by 2050.

Royal Academy of Cambodia economics researcher Ky Sereyvath pointed out that the figures provided in the report are too steep to be taken from state coffers alone, and that information on applicable projects would be shared with foreign companies that potentially have the ability and interest to co-invest in them with the government.

The 2022-2024 PIP is designed to present data on high-priority investment projects of government ministries and institutions, and is a policy outlined in the Rectangular Strategy Phase IV and a roadmap for implementing the policies laid out in the National Strategic Development Plan 2019-2023.