Day: December 21, 2022

To support the Cambodia’s efforts to promote a resilient recovery from recent economic shocks, World Bank today supports Cambodia by a US$274 million credit for the Cambodia Growth and Resilience Development Policy Operation.
“The financing approved by the World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors will support reforms that will boost growth and strengthen Cambodia’s resilience,” according to a press release received this morning.
While Cambodia’s ‘Living with COVID-19’ strategy has helped rebuild the economy, the country remains vulnerable to downturns in external demand and disruptions in global supply chains, said Ms. Maryam Salim, World Bank Country Manager for Cambodia.
“This new operation will help Cambodia boost private sector competitiveness, strengthen its fiscal position, and provide assistance to its most vulnerable people,” she said.
Cambodia’s economy was badly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, with GDP contracting by 3.1 percent in 2020, the country’s first recession in 30 years. Simulations show that the poverty rate increased by 2.8 percentage points, pushing about 460,000 individuals into poverty. The government responded quickly and effectively to the pandemic, assisting business and vulnerable families, but the associated rise in spending has meant that fiscal consolidation will be required in the period ahead.
While the economy has recovered in 2021 and 2022, the weakening external environment means that returning to the strong rates of growth seen prior to the pandemic will prove challenging. The ongoing war in Ukraine, economic slowdown in the United States — Cambodia’s largest export market — and slower growth in China will all affect Cambodia’s trade prospects. The country is also highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, with high exposure to floods and drought.
The operation supports reforms that will streamline the business registration processes, promote competition, and expand access to finance for small and medium enterprises. Other reforms will enhance fiscal resilience, including by improving the management of Public Private Partnerships and facilitating the issuance of government debt in the domestic market. The operation will also facilitate the timely provision of relief to a broader set of vulnerable households in the event of a natural disaster or economic shock.
The operation is anchored in the government’s post-pandemic Economic Recovery Plan, which has three broad objectives of recovery, reform, and resilience, and builds on the US$200 million Cambodia Relief, Recovery, and Resilience Development Policy Financing operation approved in 2021.
The financing provided by this operation will help to alleviate some of the fiscal pressures that the government is now facing, having run relatively large deficits in recent years. The US$274 million credit is provided by the International Development Association (IDA), the World Bank’s fund for the poorest countries.

Source: Agency Kampuchea Press

Cambodian U23 national football team beat their Philippine counterpart 3:2 in a match held yesterday evening at Phnom Penh’s Morodok Techo National Stadium for the AFF Mitsubishi Electric Cup 2022.
AFF Mitsubishi Electric Cup 2022 take places from Dec. 20, 2022 to Jan. 16, 2023, with the participation of footballers from the 10 ASEAN member countries.
Cambodia is in group A with Thailand, Indonesia, the Philippines and Brunei Darussalam, while group B includes Vietnam, Myanmar, Malaysia, Singapore and Laos.
The event will be a good opportunity for the national footballers to sharpen their capacity for the SEA Games-ASEAN Para Games 2023 to be hosted by Cambodia.

Source: Agency Kampuchea Press

The Korea International Cooperation Agency (KOICA), in collaboration with the Ministry of Environment, the Ministry of Education, Youth, and Sports is organising the first inspiring workshop of the newly established Department of Environmental Engineering in the Royal University of Phnom Penh (RUPP) from Dec. 20-22.
The workshop was attended by Mr. Hyunjun RHO, Country Director of KOICA, Dr. Phal Des, Vice Rector of RUPP, Dr. Kyoung-Woong Kim, Professor & Director of International Environmental Research Institute of GIST, H.E. Dr. Monyneath Vann, Director General at the Ministry of Environmental, Mr. Paolo Dalla Stella, Environmental Policy Specialist of UNDP, Professors from GIST & RUPP.
According to KOICA Cambodia Office’s press release issued this morning, the workshop is under the Project for Establishment of Environmental Engineering in RUPP to Foster the Human Resources of Higher Education in Cambodia from 2021-2026, a US$6.9 million grant from the Republic of Korea.
The project aims at fostering Cambodian experts in environmental engineering who can identify, assess, monitor, and/ or address environmental challenges and contribute to advancing environmental sustainability in Cambodia.

Source: Agency Kampuchea Press

The Mekong River Commission is sounding the alarm on the growing challenge of macroplastics and microplastics, urging its four Member Countries to establish a joint, permanent mechanism to monitor and clean up pollutants that seep into the soil, air and fisheries — and can affect both the ecosystem and human health.
Regarding this pollution in the Lower Mekong River Basin (LMB), the MRC also recommends Cambodia, Lao PDR, Thailand and Viet Nam to pass and enforce new rules and regulations on waste littering; the so-called “3Rs” of reduce, reuse, recycle; and riverine plastics waste management. As the report states, these policies should specify who should do what, identifying the “clear responsibility of national government, local government, private sector and community.”
The MRC’s own Riverine Plastic Monitoring (RPM) Programme — the first one in the world — estimated that in 2020, its four countries had produced about eight million tonnes of plastic waste. At ports and piers, for example, some 70 to 90 percenet of the solid waste was identified as plastic bottles, plastic bags and styrofoam.
Dr. Anoulak Kittikhoun, CEO of the MRC Secretariat said as the region is undergoing rapid economic development and urbanisation, plastic has found a wide variety of applications, due to its relatively low cost, light weight, durability, ubiquity, and malleability.
“Yet, we must close our gaps in knowledge about the flux, transport behaviour and pathway of plastic pollution, to minimise impact on the Mekong, but also to contribute to saving the ocean,” he said.
Experts now view plastic pollution as a major hindrance to the “sustainable ocean economy” itself, which is relied upon by some three billion people around the world. Collective action is needed, as most such pollution reportedly flows from some 1,000 rivers globally, directly into the oceans. By some measures, the Mekong is one of the prime plastic polluters of the oceans.
Less visible than the solid waste, but even more harmful, are the “microplastics,” which are the miniscule pieces of degraded plastic, synthetic fibers and plastic beads that can be easily ingested by humans and animals. As academic publisher Scientific American has described it, “This is very dangerous, as microplastics have been found to physically damage organs and leach hazardous materials that can harm the immune system, halt growth and reproduction.”
The issue of plastics pollution first became prominent in 2017, with the landmark research of a German-led team that documented how large rivers were the main source of many hundreds of metric tonnes of plastics that had begun to suffocate parts of different oceans. The researchers identified the rivers most responsible, around the world and the Mekong ranked 10th.
That said, in 2021 a team of researchers presented a more nuanced reality: Plastic “emissions are distributed over more rivers than previously thought by up to two orders of magnitude. We estimate that more than 1,000 rivers account for 80 percent of global annual emissions […] with small urban rivers among the most polluting.”
“Our work doesn’t end here, as much more must be done to protect the Mekong River Basin,” says Dr. Kittikhoun. “We’ll look into more campaigns to raise public awareness and how to encourage relevant government officials to take meaningful actions.”

Source: Agency Kampuchea Press