{"id":49146,"date":"2019-03-02T20:01:03","date_gmt":"2019-03-02T13:01:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pressocm.gov.kh\/?p=49146"},"modified":"2019-03-04T20:03:20","modified_gmt":"2019-03-04T13:03:20","slug":"remarks-samdech-techo-hun-sen%e2%80%8b%e2%80%8b-at-the-opening-of-7th-rcep-intersessional-ministerial-meeting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pressocm.gov.kh\/en\/archives\/49146","title":{"rendered":"Remarks Samdech Techo Hun Sen,\u200b\u200b at the Opening of 7th RCEP Intersessional Ministerial Meeting"},"content":{"rendered":"

 <\/p>\n

CNV:

Excellencies Ministers of the RCEP Participating Countries;
\n<\/em>H.E. Lim Jock Hoi, Secretary General of ASEAN;
\n<\/em>Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen!<\/em><\/p>\n

Today I am delighted to participate in the opening ceremony of the\u00a07th<\/sup>\u00a0RCEP Intersessional Ministerial Meeting<\/strong>\u00a0which is the ASEAN\u2019s initiative and initially began the negotiation in 2012 during the 21st<\/sup>\u00a0ASEAN Summit in Phnom Penh, Kingdom of Cambodia, including 16 participating countries that are 10 ASEAN member countries and 6 ASEAN Free Trade partner\u2019s countries, which are\u00a0Australia, China, India, Japan, South Korea, and New Zealand.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

I would like to welcome and thank Excellencies, Ministers, and distinguished delegates from the\u00a0RCEP<\/strong>\u00a0negotiating countries who are now having presence on the land of Angkor in Siem Reap province, which is the well-known historical center of Cambodia.<\/p>\n

At this moment of the world today, the multi-lateral trade system, which has free and open features, is in tough situation facing serious threats, since some countries including the mega-powers are holding a unilateral and bilateral policy which only consider about their own benefits that lead to the rise of protectionism and also have impact on the free trade within the region of RCEP member countries.\u00a0 Therefore, we shall try to conclude the negotiation of this important free trade agreement within the set timeline. So far, I have encouraged our fellow ministers and negotiation working groups to discuss at the sectoral bodies with the continued effort to conclude the negotiation as mandated by the\u00a0RCEP<\/strong>\u00a0Leaders, although Cambodia is required to carry out rigorous reforms on a number of legal documents and be more flexible with some other partner countries.<\/p>\n

At the same time, we have been aware that the population of\u00a0RCEP<\/strong>\u00a0from 16 countries is\u00a045%\u00a0<\/strong>of the world population, which consists of almost\u00a030%<\/strong>\u00a0of the world GDP, whereas the\u00a0RCEP<\/strong>\u00a0countries trade comprise of\u00a028.5%<\/strong>\u00a0of the world trade, and the production of\u00a0RCEP<\/strong>\u00a0countries contain\u00a031.6%<\/strong>\u00a0of the world production, while the foreign direct investment flow of the\u00a0RCEP<\/strong>\u00a0countries cover\u00a0one fifth<\/strong>\u00a0of the world foreign direct investment flow by 2016.<\/p>\n

Thus, the hosting of this 7th<\/sup>\u00a0RCEP Intersessional Ministerial Meeting today is truly significant, yet the negotiation of this mega free trade agreement is truly hard and complicated, given the fact that the 16\u00a0RCEP<\/strong>\u00a0member countries do have different economic situations. Nevertheless, I hope that when the negotiation has reached to an end with transparency, all\u00a0RCEP<\/strong>\u00a0participating countries will receive many benefits from this multilateral trade.<\/p>\n

Cambodia has a great honor once again to host this 7th\u00a0<\/sup>\u00a0RCEP Intersessional Ministerial Meeting at this moment.\u00a0 Meanwhile, Cambodia as well as other\u00a0RCEP<\/strong>member countries would like to congratulate on the progress of negotiation that is now successfully moving into the final stage of negotiation, and I would like to also thank Indonesia who is acting as a lead negotiation facilitator.<\/p>\n

With this spirit, I would like to share some recommendations \u200bas the basis for consideration and negotiation as follows:<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

First:<\/strong>\u00a0All member countries of the negotiation party of the Regional Comprehensive Partnership Agreement shall consider this negotiation as a\u00a0\u201cWin-Win\u201d process<\/strong>\u00a0that all parties can accept and the outcome of this negotiation will provide numerous benefits to all the parties even at any different levels.<\/p>\n

Second:\u00a0<\/strong>All members of negotiating countries, although with different economic agenda, shall review this\u00a0RCEP<\/strong>\u00a0agreement with high spirit of responsibility on overall aspect that has potential and benefit to make this negotiation process smoothly and to overcome all the outstanding obstacles in order to conclude this negotiation timely with transparency.<\/p>\n

Third:\u00a0<\/strong>I would like to appeal to all member countries that participated in negotiating\u00a0RCEP<\/strong>\u00a0agreement to have political will and provide guidance to the members of this negotiating committee with flexibility, understanding and mutual benefit in accordance with the adopted guiding principles since 2012 during the\u00a021st<\/sup>ASEAN Summit in Phnom Penh<\/strong>.\u00a0 More specifically, for the\u00a0RCEP<\/strong>\u00a0member countries that are developed with better economic situation shall have willingness to offer special treatment and open market access to\u00a0least developed countries (LDCs)<\/strong>\u00a0that have small economic size in order to encourage these countries to actively participate in the multilateral free trade movement with transparency.<\/p>\n

I believe that all member countries will have joint political commitment to successfully conclude this\u00a0RCEP<\/strong>\u00a0agreement in 2019, in which Thailand is the\u00a0Chair of ASEAN<\/strong>\u00a0as in line with the commitment of leaders during the 2nd<\/sup>\u00a0RCEP<\/strong>\u00a0Summit on 14th<\/sup>\u00a0November 2018 in Singapore in order to move on negotiating other free trade agreements in the region.<\/p>\n

[Start of Extempore Comment]<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

RCEP Could Lead to Success of a\u00a0Free and Open Indo<\/em>\u2013Pacific<\/em>\u00a0Concept (FOIP)<\/strong><\/p>\n

Please allow me to add a little more that the agreement that we are working to conclude is not only for simple economic achievement alone but also for a wider concept of a free and open Indo-Pacific (initiative). Let me share my brief impression on initiatives taken in the framework of ASEAN. Indonesia has launched its initiative of Indo-Pacific strategy. Elsewhere in the region, India champion its policy of looking east, which is under fulfilment now. South Korea also works on concept of looking south. Japan has been talking about FOIP. China also has its concept of one belt one road. All these together have been agreements that we are working on to establish a comprehensive economic partnership in the region.<\/p>\n

Synthesizing Economic Initiatives for Regional Harmonization and Prosperity<\/strong><\/p>\n

Should we come to agreement (on RCEP) it would be more than half of success of every agreement issued so far. I hope that the ten ASEAN member countries and its 16 partnering countries who have been developing more or less similar initiatives to work for this agreement achievement. We could work together to synthesize India\u2019s Looking East, RoK\u2019s Looking South, Japan\u2019s FOIP, Australia\u2019s Indo-Pacific Strategy and China\u2019s One Belt One Road \u2013 for the sake of harmonization and prosperity in the region. If we could not conclude this agreement, those initiatives would also not be realized. Should we conclude this agreement, there would be trust and coordination in the region not only in economic but also political and other issues.<\/p>\n

To Amend Laws for RCEP<\/strong><\/p>\n

I had a brief meeting with the Singapore Minister and we discussed about connectivity, which also include soft or legal issues. I already mentioned it above. Cambodia is ready to amend its related laws and regulations to get a conformity with RCEP. We will have to do it. We also have done it to suit demands of the World Trade Organization. Well, that is how I briefly see how we should go about with regional grouping concepts working together to ensure full peace and cooperation. I am sure it is also a part of efforts to resist protectionism and unilateralism that is leading to liberalization and its universalness.<\/p>\n

[End of Extempore Comment]<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

At the end, with the Opening of the\u00a07th<\/sup>\u00a0RCEP Intersessional Ministerial Meeting<\/strong>, I would like to wish Excellencies, Ministers and distinguished delegates of RCEP negotiation a great success for the regional economic benefit, and I wish you all the best of health, good memories, and pleasant stay in the well-known land of Angkor of the Kingdom of Cambodia.<\/p>\n

Thank you!<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I would like to welcome and thank Excellencies, Ministers, and distinguished delegates from the\u00a0RCEP\u00a0negotiating countries who are now having presence on the land of Angkor in Siem Reap province, which is the well-known historical center of Cambodia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":49021,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,22],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-49146","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-slide-show-english","8":"category-speech"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressocm.gov.kh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49146","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressocm.gov.kh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressocm.gov.kh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressocm.gov.kh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressocm.gov.kh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49146"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pressocm.gov.kh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49146\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49147,"href":"https:\/\/pressocm.gov.kh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49146\/revisions\/49147"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressocm.gov.kh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49021"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pressocm.gov.kh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49146"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressocm.gov.kh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49146"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pressocm.gov.kh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49146"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}