CAMBODIA’S ratification of the ASEAN Free Trade Zone with Australia and New Zealand is expected to increase trade, investment, and tourists exchanged among the signatories, according to officials.

Cheam Yeab, chairman of the National Assembly’s Economy, Finance, Banking and Audit Committee said he anticipated that the Kingdom’s approval of the free trade agreement would prove beneficial to the economy.

“Our door is now widely opened for the inflow and outflow of goods with the two countries,” he said yesterday.

The ASEAN-Australia-New Zealand FTA officially came into force on January 1, 2010, but was not ratified by the National Assembly until last Friday. It aims to realise full free trade between ASEAN members and Australia and New Zealand by 2015.

“The [free-trade] agreement hopes to create a trans-Pacific free-trade zone comprising a market of 600 million people with a combined GDP of US$2.7 trillion,” it said.

The initial agreement to establish the FTA was signed in Thailand during February 2009.