This strong export performance translates to RCEP countries accounting for a significant portion of Cambodia’s overall trade. RCEP exports made up 39% of the Kingdom’s total trade value of US$10.18 billion during the five-month period.

Overall trade between Cambodia and RCEP members also saw a significant rise, reaching US$14.17 billion, reflecting a 14.2% increase. This translates to RCEP trade representing a substantial 65.57% of Cambodia’s total international trade valued at US$21.61 billion.

For reference, the RCEP free trade agreement came into effect in January 2022. It encompasses 15 Asia-Pacific nations, including the 10 ASEAN member states (Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam) and five additional trading partners (China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand).

The agreement offers Cambodia preferential tariffs on various exports, including agricultural products, processed goods, and industrial items. Additionally, Cambodia benefits from knowledge and technology transfer, skill development, and foreign direct investment that creates new jobs.

H.E. Sok Siphana, Senior Minister in Charge of International and Multilateral Trade and Economic Relations, previously highlighted RCEP’s positive impact on Cambodia’s economic growth. He emphasized the agreement’s role in providing wider market access for Cambodian products and contributing to the country’s sustainable economic development in the long run.

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The report said Cambodia’s total trade volume with other RCEP members accounted for 67.6 percent of the country’s total trade of US$4.05 billion in January this year.

Entering into force on Jan. 1, 2022, RCEP comprises 15 Asia-Pacific countries including 10 ASEAN member states — Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam — and their five trading partners, namely China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.

RCEP has given a big impetus to Cambodia’s exports, contributing to the economic development of the country, said H.E. Sok Siphana, Senior Minister in Charge of International and Multilateral Trade and Economic Relations.

“RCEP has given a big market access to Cambodia’s products and is the source of the country’s sustainable economic development in years to come,” he said.

Under the mega-regional pact, as much as 90 percent of the tariffs on goods traded among its signatories will be eliminated over the next 20 years.

In 2023, the two-way trade between Cambodia and RCEP countries decreased by 5.07 percent to US$29.45 billion.

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Sok Siphana, a senior minister and chairman emeritus of the Board of Directors of the Asian Vision Institute, said 2024 is the year to implement the China-Cambodia community with a shared future in the new era and the China-Cambodia People-to-People Exchange Year.

“China-Cambodia economic and trade cooperation will continue to deepen and become a driving force for the China-Cambodia economy as well as an important driving force for sustainable social development,” he told Xinhua in a recent interview.

“The potential of China-Cambodia tourism cooperation will continue to be better explored, and Cambodia’s infrastructure investment will achieve a higher growth,” he added.

Siphana said the construction of the “Industrial Development Corridor” and the “Fish and Rice Corridor” will achieve new developments.

He said Cambodia’s economic growth is expected to rebound to 5.8 percent in 2024, citing a World Bank’s recent report.

The senior minister said Cambodia and China had achieved good results in their trade and investment ties in 2023 amid declining global demand, saying that the two-way trade increased last year, as China’s investment in Cambodia accounted for 66 percent of the kingdom’s foreign investment sources.

He said China had been Cambodia’s largest trading partner for 12 consecutive years and remained the Southeast Asian country’s biggest source of foreign direct investment.

Siphana said the formal entry into force of the China-Cambodia Free Trade Agreement and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (RCEP) have injected vitality into the continued growth of the bilateral trade volume.

According to him, Cambodia’s rice, cassava, bananas, mangoes, longans, peppers, and other categories of high-quality agricultural products are approved to be exported to China.

Durians and bird’s nest are currently undergoing market access assessment, he said, adding that China has become the largest export market for Cambodian bananas and longans.

Siphana said Cambodia is committed to maintaining its high-level diplomacy with China and supporting the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).

“The BRI is an important factor in attracting more Chinese investment,” he said.

The senior minister added that the BRI is deeply aligned with the first phase of Cambodia’s Pentagonal Strategy, enriching the “Diamond Hexagon” cooperation framework between the two countries, as well as playing an important role in Cambodia’s economic development and improvement of people’s livelihood.

He highlighted flagship BRI projects in the kingdom, including the Siem Reap Angkor International Airport officially launched last November, the Phnom Penh-Sihanoukville Expressway formally put into operation in November 2022, and the ongoing construction of the second expressway from Phnom Penh to Bavet.

“A large number of infrastructure projects such as roads, bridges, airports, and ports implemented by Chinese-funded enterprises have promoted Cambodia’s economic development and connectivity,” Siphana said.

He added that the construction of hydropower stations and transmission grids invested by China, the construction of multiple industrial parks such as the Sihanoukville Special Economy Zone, and the construction of car tire and cement plants have improved the level of industrialization in Cambodia and created a large number of jobs and tax revenues for the kingdom.

“Investments from Chinese technology companies have also expanded Cambodia’s digital economy and green economy,” he said. “China and Cambodia have achieved outstanding results in jointly building a high-quality, high-level, and high-standard community with a shared future.

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The top five export destinations for Cambodia during the said period were the United States of America, Vietnam, China, Thailand, and Japan.

The U.S. remained the Kingdom’s biggest market during the first eleven months of this year with exports worth US$14 billion, a year-on-year decrease of 0.9 percent.

Exports to Vietnam rose by 37.8 percent, from US$1.89 billion to US$2.61 billion, while those to China saw a surge of 18.5 percent to US$1.31 billion.

The country’s main products exported were apparel, footwear, travel goods, bicycles, and agricultural products such as rice, rubber, cassava, bananas, and mangoes.

The garment, footwear, and travel goods industry is the largest foreign exchange earner for Cambodia. The sector consists of roughly 1,133 factories and branches, employing approximately 840,000 workers, mostly female.

The Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP)’s trade preference has the effect of stimulating more cross-border trade, investment, and flows of people, H.E. Sok Siphana, Senior Minister in Charge of International and Multilateral Trade and Economic Relations.

“RCEP has given a big market access to Cambodia’s products and is the source of Cambodia’s sustainable economic development in years to come,” he said in a lecture on “Analysis of Legal Aspects of Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement, at the Ministry of Information on Nov. 21.

RCEP, which came into effect in 2022, comprises 15 Asia-Pacific countries including the 10-member Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and their five trading partners, namely China, Japan, South Korea, Australia, and New Zealand.

Meanwhile, Cambodia’s total imports came down by 5.4 percent to US$22 billion, the report pointed out.

The country primarily imports raw and construction materials, automobiles, pharmaceuticals, electronic equipment, fertilizers and pesticides.

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The RCEP comprises 15 countries, including 10 countries of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), as well as China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.

Sok Siphana, a senior minister in charge of special mission, said the world’s biggest free trade agreement is comprehensive, covering trade in goods and services, investment, economic and technical cooperation, dispute settlement, e-commerce, competition, and intellectual property rights, among others.

“The most obvious element of the RCEP is its ambitious reduction in tariff barriers,” he said in a presentation delivered to Information Ministry officials.

“The total number of zero-tariff products in trade in goods exceeds 92 percent, while the opening up of at least 65 percent of services sectors, will certainly have the effect of stimulating more cross-border trade, investment and flows of people, thus expediting economic and trade integration in the Asia-Pacific region,” he added.

For Cambodia, Siphana said the RCEP has provided bigger market access for the kingdom’s products, particularly agricultural and industrial ones.

“Cambodia has received good trade preferences under the RCEP for their agricultural products, which include among others, cashew nuts, maize, coconut, fresh mango, banana, sweet potato, honey, turmeric powder, orange, papaya, passion fruit, garlic, guava, dragon fruit, and durian,” he said.

As for industrial goods, he said Cambodia has received good trade preferences under the RCEP for products like bicycles, garments, footwear, electronic components, electrical cables, furniture, handbags, suitcases, electrical wires, sports equipment, processed resin, processed woodchips, white sugar, cane sugar, and rubber, among others.

He said the RCEP, along with bilateral free trade agreements, will help Cambodia achieve its ambitious goals of becoming an upper-middle-income country by 2030 and a high-income nation by 2050.

According to the Ministry of Commerce, Cambodia exported 5.81 billion U.S. dollars worth of products to other RCEP countries in the first nine months of 2023, up 23.6 percent from 4.7 billion dollars in the same period last year.

Kin Phea, director-general of the International Relations Institute of Cambodia, said the RCEP has stabilized member countries’ economies, especially in a time of global economic slowdown and uncertainties.

“The RCEP has huge potential to create tangible benefits for all of its members, and ASEAN will reap long-term benefits from this mega-trade pact by integrating further into regional and global supply chains,” he told Xinhua. “It will help transform ASEAN into a new engine of economic growth in Asia.”

Joseph Matthews, a senior professor at the BELTEI International University in Phnom Penh, said the RCEP has promoted multilateralism and free trade, providing mutually beneficial and win-win cooperation for all participating countries.

“This mega-trade pact has become a catalyst for greater trade and economic integration in the Asia-Pacific region, injecting vigorous momentum into building a global community with a shared future for mankind,” he told Xinhua.

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Cambodia entered into force on January 1, 2022, and has already had a positive impact on the country’s trade and economy. The agreement paid off, Cambodia’s exports to RCEP countries reached $6.34 billion in 2022, a year-on-year increase of seven percent.

H.E. Sok Siphana, Senior Minister in charge of International and Multi-lateral Trade and Economic Relations, recently said that RCEP is a huge market for Cambodia’s products and will contribute to ensuring sustainable economic growth in the years to come.

Mr. Lor Vichet, Vice-President of the Cambodia Chinese Commerce Association (CCCA), believes that Cambodia can achieve the status of a high middle-income country two years earlier in 2028 than the government’s set target of 2030, thanks in part to RCEP.

He also pointed out that the proposed entry of Hong Kong into RCEP will be a “total game changer” for Cambodia’s economic growth plans. Hong Kong is one of the freest, liberal, trade economies in the world.

“Hong Kong’s entry into RCEP will enable the flow of FDI into Cambodia,” said Vichet. “Once Hong Kong becomes a member of RCEP, the next five years will witness a huge transformation of the Cambodian economic landscape encompassing our export markets, deep-sea port development, development of special economic zones as well as the tourism sector.”

Vichet also believes that India’s entry into RCEP, which is a possibility in the near future, would be another turning point for Cambodia’s economy. India is now the world’s fifth-largest economy.

The RCEP, covering 2.3 billion people, or 30 percent of the world’s population, contributed $26.2 trillion, about 30 percent of global GDP, and accounted for 28 percent of global trade in goods and services, and 32.5 percent of global foreign direct investment inflows.

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The mega trade pact is a huge market for Cambodia’s products which contributes to ensuring sustainable economic growth in years to come, said H.E. Sok Siphana, Senior Minister in charge of International and Multi-lateral Trade and Economic Relations.

RCEP is an agreement of great importance that has the potential to shape the future of trade in Cambodia and in the region, unlocking opportunities for growth and development, he said.

“RCEP has helped in gaining market access to products made in Cambodia, attracting investors to inject investment in Cambodia to process and produce for domestic markets and export,” he underlined in a Lecture on the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) Agreement: Geo-Political and Geo-Economic Aspects, held at the Ministry of Information on Wednesday.

Cambodia attracted 113 fixed-asset investment projects worth US$1.1 billion in the first half of 2023, creating some 122,000 new jobs, according to a report from the Council for the Development of Cambodia.

The mega-regional trade pact comprises 15 Asia-Pacific countries including the 10 ASEAN Member States – Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand and Vietnam, and their five trading partners, namely China, Japan, South Korea, Australia and New Zealand.

Entered into force on Jan. 1, 2022, RCEP member countries have committed to eliminating tariffs on more than 90 percent of goods traded within the RCEP.

The RCEP, covering 2.3 billion people, or 30 percent of the world’s population, contributed US$26.2 trillion, about 30 percent of global GDP, and accounted for 28 percent of global trade in goods and services, and 32.5 percent of global foreign direct investment inflows.

Cambodia’s exports to RCEP countries reached US$6.34 billion in 2022, a year-on-year increase of seven percent, according to a Ministry of Commerce report.

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