PHNOM PENH, Nov. 27 (Xinhua) -- Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet said here on Tuesday that the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) agreement has given Cambodia entry to a market of 2.3 billion people.
"This means access not just to Cambodia's domestic market of 17 million consumers, but to a combined market of billions," he told some 300 participants at the Global Chinese Economic and Technology (GCET) Summit 2024 in Phnom Penh.
"We are not just offering investors a place for investment, we are offering them a ticket to this region's future," he added.
The GCET summit is an annual international forum. Its purpose is to improve business linkages and connectivity between China and the world, providing a platform for high-level discussions on global and regional events in relation to China's rise as a world-leading economy.
Speaking at the summit, Sok Siphana, a Cambodian senior minister in charge of special missions of multilateral trade and economic affairs, said the RCEP is a powerful instrument to boost security, prosperity, and partnership within the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), as well as an important link to ASEAN's partners in the East.
"The RCEP has the potential to enhance regional supply chain stability and reinforce ASEAN's central role in the wider regional framework as well," he said.
"I must urge all RCEP member countries to capitalize to the maximum on this agreement to keep our region stable," he added, stressing that the RCEP will be the stabilizing force for the region.
Effective from Jan. 1, 2022, the RCEP has 15 members: 10 ASEAN member states, namely Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, and their five trading partners, including Australia, China, Japan, New Zealand and South Korea.■