CLMV Meeting on Economic Recession

Thursday, 03 December 2009 03:33 DAP-NEWS

(Posted by CAAI News Media)

The Cambodian Ministry of Com-merce and the Cambodian Institute for Cooperation and Peace (CICP) with support from the Economic Research Institute for Asean and East Asia on Wednesday hosted a regional seminar on the economic recession to seek ways to improve economic recovery.

The experts from famous financial institutions have contributed ideas to help the economic recovery, Prince Norodom Sirivudh, founder and chairman of CICP, said in his opening remarks of the seminar. CICP is the co-organizer to host the regional seminar with participation from officials from Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar and Vietnam (CLMV). The four countries are the young member of ASEAN and are still poor and we have to meet to seek ways to deal this economic downturn, he said.

“The recent tension between Cam-bodia and Thailand is also our concern because we feared that I could affect to trade and economic sector and regional cooperation, he noted. “Our experts in this seminar will seek ways to help to deal economic recession,” he added.

Pan Sorasak, secretary of state for the Trade Ministry, said that Cambodian government is trying its measures against this financial crisis. “Now that agricultural sector our potential one and it is still playing a key role for our economy,” Pan said, adding that real estate, tourism, and garment affected from this crisis. “And now the government also strengthen the social safety network and provide and fund to help training workers who lost jobs,” he added.

At the same time, Mitsuhiro Kagami, president of Bangkok research center said that for late comer countries in Asean like CVML need to revitalize economy and utilization of official direct aid is important factor, and utilization of investment to revitalize the economy. Late comer countries were not influenced by present financial crisis because of light involvement in financial opening –up and those countries highly involved in exports were affected by the recession in advanced. “ We should increase domestic demand to cope with recession. The government role for this time needs direct subsidy like lump –sum grants, tax reduction on gasoline, and provide loans for SMEs and pour more money on public investment for employment,” he added.