Cambodia to give greater role for private sector as ASEAN chair

PHNOM PENH, March 12 (Xinhua) -- Private sector has been playing an important role in speeding up the ASEAN integration. As the 2012 ASEAN chair, Cambodia will do all its best to provide a bigger role for the sector, a Cambodian senior official said on Monday.
"Cambodia will boost deeper ASEAN integration by providing a greater role for private sector in ASEAN processes and policy making," Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Finance Keat Chhon said during the opening of an annual meeting at the Ministry of Commerce.
He said that ASEAN is a strategic and promising region and for its growth and dynamism to be sustained, the private sector must play a key role to help ASEAN governments realize the ASEAN economic community by 2015.
"Cambodia is ready to grasp opportunities from market open and to take advantages of ASEAN Free Trade Area Agreements and other ASEAN Cooperation Agreements," he said.
However, he said, the country was still much in need of financial and technical assistance from development partners to strengthen infrastructures and human resources for both private and governmental institutions in order to enhance production quality and capacity for the competition with other ASEAN producers when the full implementation of the ASEAN Free Trade Area agreement begins in 2015.
The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) groups Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam.