This article was published as Policy Brief Issue 3, 28 September 2018, Cambodia Development Centre.To download PDF version, please find the link below:
Download:
Cambodia’s undertaking of Belt and Road Initiative and Industrial Development Policy
Cambodia is one of the strong supporters
of China’s BRI. In addition to cooperation agreement to further enhance
comprehensive strategic partnership signed during President Xi’s visit to Phnom
Penh in 2016, Cambodia and China agreed on an ‘Outline Cooperation Plan to
Jointly Build the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century
Maritime Silk Road’ a year later.
Cambodia’s firm support of BRI is driven by both strategic and
economic considerations. Strategically, the initiative represents opportunities
for Cambodia to reduce dependence on the development of Western donors whose
assistances in many cases frustrated the government via their strict conditions
attached. Since the 2000s China[1]
overtook some major Western donors including EC and USA and emerged as “the
largest single donor” to Cambodia. Equally important is the fact that the government of
Cambodia favours China’s non-interference policy on the ground that it enable
Cambodia to maintain sovereignty and pursue independent foreign policy on the
international stage.
Economically, BRI can be a new source of Cambodia’s next
stage of growth and development through ever increasing infrastructure
development, investment, trade and tourism. During the visit of State Councilor
Yang Jiechi in April 2017 in Phnom Penh, Prime Minister Hun Sen said: “the Belt
and Road Initiative is of great historical significance, which will surely
advance regional connectivity and the construction of regional integration, and
bring enormous opportunities to the development of countries in the region. The
Cambodian side hopes to realize better and faster development of its economy
through further deepening bilateral practical cooperation under the Belt and
Road framework” [2]. For China, Cambodia is its old and
close ally that can play important role in promoting regional and sub-regional
cooperation as well as the construction of its BRI (Pou 2017).
Cambodia
already has its own national development policies such as the Rectangular
Strategy Phase III and Industrial Development Policy (IDP). In consistency with
the goal of BRI in promoting policy synergy, Cambodia’s designed policies have
been fully used to shape direction of cooperation between Cambodia and China
within BRI framework.
Out of the 14
points of cooperation measures that have been laid out at the Belt and Road
Forum, Cambodia and China have clearly identified specific areas of cooperation
that best fit with Cambodian and Chinese national strategies. Based on the MoU
on Formulating the Outline of Bilateral Cooperation Plan, Cambodia and China
have identified 7 key areas namely infrastructure, agriculture, capacity
building, industrial cluster, culture and tourism, finance and eco-environment
protection. In the 7 key areas, there are 4 areas on the MoU that are in line
with priorities of the IDP namely promotion of agro-industry, stronger boost
for infrastructure, promotion of industrial cluster and industrial human
resource capacity building.