CONTENTS

• Letter To The Editor Of TheWashington Post

• The Royal Government of Cambodia's Platform On Second Term 1998-2003 (continued from December issue)

Letter To The Editor Of TheWashington Post

Recent demands by U.S. politicians and The Post that the government of Cambodia put on trial two former officials of the Khmer Rouge for crimes against humanity are as gratuitous as they are intrusive ["Bouquets for Killers," editorial, Dec. 31]. Prime Minister Hun Sen explicitly has stated that his position is that the trial of the Khmer Rouge "is a fait acompli and should proceed."

Under its current duly elected government, Cambodia is making progress toward a stable, democratic polity that will protect personal liberties and property. Cambodia needs help to achieve this. We should not have to accept ill-informed manipulation of our internal political and judicial processes. Nevertheless, as the article "Repressed Memories" by Peter S. Goodman points out [Outlook, Jan. 10], government intrusion and manipulation are exactly what some in the West are determined to offer.

During the recent elections in Cambodia, certain U.S. political organizations gave evidence of supporting the political opponents of Prime Minister Hun Sen. This was despite suspicious connections between elements of those partisan groups and the murderous Khmer Rouge forces.

The allegations about Hun Sen stem from a brief episode in his youth during which he served as a minor military officer in the Khmer Rouge forces prior to his defection to Vietnam in 1977. As the New York Times reported recently, "Historians have not found any evidence that he was directly responsible for the mass killings" perpetrated by the Khmer Rouge. They have found no such evidence because Hun Sen played no part in the killings and has devoted his life to stopping them and overthrowing the Khmer Rouge tyranny responsible for them.

It is not Prime Minister Hun Sen who has committed genocide on his own people. Rather he has saved his nation from genocide. It is not he who has tried to subvert and thwart democracy in Cambodia but those same partisan elements who have received backing from certain American politicians and whom the Khmer Rouge have acknowledged to be their pawns in a plot to seize power surreptitiously.

The official platform of the government for the second term explicitly states that "Cambodia would promote a free market economy linked with the program to combat poverty and [promote] social justice," and it specifically commits itself to establishing "administrative structures to ensure freedom and autonomy of the private sector to property rights, employment, profession and the right to compete freely."

It is precisely such reforms that have led Dith Pran --whose life story was portrayed in the movie "The Killing Fields" -- to support Prime Minister Hun Sen's efforts to bring Cambodia into the Association of Southeast Nations (ASEAN). Last summer, ASEAN, the European Union and various independent nations of Asia and Europe recognized the achievement of free and fair democratic elections in Cambodia.

 VAR HUOTH
Ambassador
January 21, 1999

Cambodia with high respect to humanity would conduct itself to be a good member of the United Nations.

The Royal Government of Cambodia is very grateful to the international communities for their contribution, peace, democracy and prosperity in Cambodia.

II. Economic Policy:

The economy is a principle domain to support the national development program, which involves sustainability and macro-economy. It should effectively use its natural and human resources. Cambodia would promote free market economy linked with the program of combat the poverty, and social justice. The economic mechanism runs its course within rules and regulations of free market economy.

The Royal Government would not manage the market, but it would support it. The royal Government would grant the private sector the right of self-determination on productivity, investment, and expenditure, and it would intervene much less. For the reasons, it would set legal and administrative structures to ensure freedom and autonomy of the private sector to property right, employment, profession, and the right to compete freely.

It would improve mechanism and structure of economic management to ensure the effectiveness and transparency to cope with corruption and violation of law. That is very important to stabilize the macro-economy, to boost the people's standard of living, and to encourage the investment.

It prioritizes the physical agricultural infrastructure, electricity and human resources, which are the basics of overall development. The following goals must be achieved:

1. To speed the economic growth in order to improve the popular living standard and to create more employment. The chief potential to promote the economic growth is to amass and to transform the natural resources and the national products into the products of export. The Royal Government would improve economic rules and regulations and to promote Cambodia to be a goods producer in order to attract more foreign investment.
2. To ensure the stability of Riel currency, to keep the inflation rate at bay, to prevent the loss of revenue and private saving by the Riel fluctuation, and to build confidence in Riel by devaluating with caution the dollar.
3. To increase the export of agricultural and manufacturing products with high expertise and quality.
4. The Royal Government would do its best to alleviate the poverty. The alleviation of poverty is not only the basic of sustainability of the economic development, but it also the priority to implement the social program.

To attain the above goals, the Royal Government would seize down the following imbalances:

1. Between the need and supply, especially on foods, housing, transportation, education, and health care.
2. Between the revenue and expenditure within the national budget.
3. Between the import and export.
4. Between the currency and goods.
5. Between salary and the standard of living of civil servant and servicemen.
6. Between the increase in the work force and the employment.
7. Between the need for national development and the training of human resources.

The Royal Government would continue to carry out the projects, which are identified in the national program of rehabilitation and development of Cambodia. It would focus on the long-term program for the economic and social development in the first five years from 1996-2000. It also attempts to achieve the urgent need for the investment on public sector.

Based on these basics and the on going achievements, the Royal Government may carry out the following economic strategies:

The Development of Human Resources and the Building of Infrastructure:

The Royal Government strongly believes in the process of selecting the ones, who are healthy, well educated, well-disciplined, honest, independent, and responsible. In this spirit, the improvement of quality of education, health services, and food security must be strongly promoted by the Royal Government. For the improvement and the globalization of general education, it would prioritize the investment on the vocational training and on higher education. The Cambodian workers would be better equipped with skill and the know-how.

The Royal Government would cooperate with the Chamber of Commerce and other professional institutions to set up the center of transfer of the know-how.

The present shortcoming of the national infrastructure tremendously undermines the economic growth of Cambodia. The Royal Government would continue to rehabilitate the national infrastructure. Eventually it would privatize the mass transportation and communication, the telecommunication, and the electrical power supply.

Agriculture:

The main economic infrastructure of Cambodia is agriculture. The Royal Government would enhance the irrigation system, because agricultural activities in Cambodia are solely dependent on the weather. Consequently, it is essential to upgrade the General Direction of Irrigation to the level of Ministry of Water Resources and Meteorology. In five years from 1998-2003, it would increase the irrigation capacity from 16.62% to 20%, i.e. an increase of 3.32% to 4% on the farming land, and the increase of irrigation capacity from 374,603 ha. to 450,600 ha. of rice fields.

The water supply would be strictly monitored and distributed. The high quality of clean water must be absolutely maintained.

The rubber plantation would be privatized. The Royal Government would encourage a large or small scale of rubber production by the provision of credit and ownership.

The Royal Government would consolidate the forest management to ensure its sustainability. It strictly and completely bans illegal logging. It would take the following steps to:

1. Cease further investment on wood processing.
2. Review all forest concession contracts and cancel non-complied contracts. The forest under the non-complied contract would be used for national parks and habitats.
3. Encourage the companies with complied contracts to modernize their factories in order to increase the value of timber, and to create more jobs for the Cambodians The Royal Government must strictly enforce its reforestation policy.
4. Review and amend the law on forest management to benefit the investors, who do comply with the rules. Persons, who commit illegal logging and violate the forest law, must be brought to justice.

Industries:

The Royal Government would encourage small and large industries to fulfill its tasks. It would focus on strategy of producing export goods rather than import ones. The liberalization of international trade makes the local products difficult to compete in the foreign markets. The small industries produce its output enough for domestic use. It strives all efforts to make the textile industries and agricultural industries to be the core structure of Cambodian industries.

The Royal Government promotes the research and exploitation of petrol, natural gas, and other minerals, which becomes the potentiality of the national economy. It would develop soon the hydropower in order to ensure adequate electric supply with low cost and to meet its economic goal.

Trade:

The Royal Government would enhance its policy of trade liberalization. It would facilitate the free circulation of goods. The price and quantity of goods would be simplified from one region to another in order to promote the growth of its production. It would also broaden international trade relation by bridging the domestic markets to foreign markets. Finally it would promote the integration of regional and global trade.

Tourism:

The Royal Government would promote the development of tourism and make it to become tourism of culture and nature. It would heighten the private and public investments targeting at building up tourist infrastructure. It would ensure security and political stability. Tourist work has to be linked by the preservation of natural cultural heritage and natural environment.

Foreign Economic Policy:

The Royal Government adopts a precise political guideline of its external economy conforming to the liberalization of international trade, and integrating national economy into the world economy. Through this policy, Cambodia prepares itself to attract and to face regionally and globally the process of economic internationalization. At the same time, the competitive productivity and capacity of Cambodian economy in the international markets will be enhanced through the application of mass production, which decreases the unit price of production and expertise based on the availability of the domestic resources.

Cambodia, however, will face the influx of foreign finished products, which rejects a number of industries in the country. The pressure of the integration process of the regional economy, in which Cambodia expects to join ASEAN, and the World Trade Organization in the near future, will add more burden to the national budget through the fall of the tax revenue, and import duties. These financial activities would change the economic structure of Cambodia. The Royal Government is optimistic and prepares to amend its legal procedures to accommodate the economic integration.

Investment Policy:

The Royal Government of Cambodia promotes the internal and external investments through the application of the principle and the encouragement of the investment policy of the Kingdom of Cambodia. It strengthens its cooperation with friendly countries and their institutions in order to attract more investments, development assistance, trade status as most favorite nation from the developed countries and the expansion of the markets.

To have a good environment for the investment, the social political stability and the stability of the macro-economy must be ensured. The principle and the guidance of the investment policy must be firmly adhered. The Royal Government of Cambodia may reform and strengthen the institution, which is responsible for the activities of the investment, especially for the improvement on the formality of the application for the investment undermining the illegal activities and corruption.

Financial and Monetary Policies:

The Royal Government must ensure the effectiveness of the execution of its financial and monetary policies. The fiscal policy recently improved has not yet been properly carried out. The national budget, which has a duty to evaluate, to collect, and to distribute the national resources, is the most important tool to handle the economic and social policies of the Royal Government of Cambodia. Therefore, the national budget must be disbursed distinctively for the support of public services, and for the handling of public projects with the economic sense of prudence, conscience, and proficiency. The Royal Government must give the priority to the promotion of productivity, the private investment, the social programs, and public health care. The future ASEAN membership of Cambodia would influence tremendously the reform of the revenue of the national budget. The national revenue by taxation on the import and export goods will be decreased. For that, it would strengthen all facets of tax control. and broaden the internal tax revenue base in order to encourage the entrepreneurs to be in the investment process, and to achieve the budget surplus for which it is to be the sources of internal credit, such as for the public investment and for the financial intervention to pay raises for the employees of the government.

To achieve the effective control over the budget and fiscal policies, the Royal Government of Cambodia must immediately take the following steps:

1. Use every measure at all costs to combat tax evasion.
2. Strongly prohibit revenue collection and shelter, and disbursement infringing the budgetary system.
3. Abolish tax exemption, which is not stipulated in the investment law, the law on fiscal policy, and the law on the annual financial management.
4. The Ministry of Economy and Finance must strictly check and control goods before loading in order to properly tax the merchandises, while its services are being effectively conducted with high consideration of time consumption.
5. Carry out strict measure of austerity, especially against the unneeded expenses. The financial resources from privatization must only be used for the public investment such as the infrastructure, or the counterpart fund of the credit fund from the financial institution.
6. The fund used other than infrastructure purpose must be prohibited.

The Royal Government undertakes its political will to impose punishment on fraud, illegal transfer of fund, and corruption. To ensure the stability of buying power of Riel currency, the Royal Government would set the spending rate of the national budget to be below the rate of the national economic growth, and the rate of reserve fund of the banks. The interest rate conducive to the promotion of private saving, and the intervention of the National Bank in the domestic monetary markets in order to stabilize the rate of Riel exchange.

The attempts of the Royal Government of Cambodia to cut down the economic imbalance will encounter numerous difficulties, because the limited financial resources force it to prioritize the use of the economic measure. But often the economic aim being decisively successful requires a variety of economic tools to come together at one time. At the same time, the lingering economic crisis and the declined economic growth in the region will impact the flow of the foreign investment and the dome3stic growth. The Royal Government would overcome those economic stumbling blocks in order to attain its economic goal, because of its last achievements. This task needs the joint participation of national and international sectors to improve national economy and to strengthen the capacity building, the work spirit, ethics, and social obligation of public servants.

III. Culture, Health, Social Obligation:

The Royal Government initiates tough measure to restore and to promote culture heritage and national civilization, to end the declination of national culture, to highlight the social ethics, and to promote the national cultural characteristic and progress. For that, the Royal Government has to expand the education of culture and civilization, to promote the general understanding of the national identity and pride, and to stop the flow of the foreign culture, which affects the national culture.

On health matter, the Royal Government would promote health services to public and private sectors, disease prevention, mother and child care, fight against the contagious disease, and health check up and treatment in State hospitals and clinics.

On social issues, the Royal government would upgrade the standard of living of the people and to ensure the equal benefits for the people from all walks of life. Primarily, the Royal Government would cut down to the maximum of the vulnerability, and increase the chance for the poor and indigent citizens to be able to participate in the social and economic programs. It would firmly carry out the labor law and the international convention on labor unions in order to secure the right and privilege for the workers, employees, and employers. It would establish a good working condition to benefit the handicapped persons, the orphans, the widows, and the indigent men and women, so their livings could be better conditioned. It would defense the right of women and children according to the universal convention. It would engage the women in politics and in other social and economic fields. It would assist the minority to involve in restoring the economic, social, and cultural heritage.

To succeed the social rehabilitation and development, there is an important factor to be addressed; that is the task of building social conscience, confidence, and self-determination, which produce quality work. The idea and stand on ordinary productivity to improve the skill and the knowledge of know-how in agreement with the rules of development must be encouraged. 

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• Royal Embassy of Cambodia to the United States of America
  4500 16th Street, NW
  Washington, DC 20011

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