If Cambodia can continue to attract large-scale agricultural investment projects to the country, no matter where they are located, it is certain that Cambodia’s agriculture sector will grow stronger and continue to play an even bigger role in supporting economic growth.
In July, the Council for the Development of Cambodia said that Cambodia had attracted a major agricultural investment project worth $226 million. The project is said to be a project to expand production on fruit farms and processing plants. The projects are located in Lum Phat district, Ratanakiri province, and are expected to create up to 8,550 jobs.
Regarding the agricultural development process, an official at the Council for the Development of Cambodia, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that both foreign and local investors are pouring capital into the agricultural sector.
He stated that “Although the investment volume is not as large as the industry, the agricultural sector in general has attracted a total of $356 million in investment in the past 7 months.” He continued that if investors continue to pour their money into the agricultural sector, especially farms and processing such as In Ratanakiri province, Cambodia’s agricultural sector will improve and will move towards prosperity in the future. He said that when Cambodia is reformed, it can eliminate the current outflow of unfinished products from the country and only export finished products.
In the past seven months, apart from agriculture, Cambodia has attracted investment projects in the industrial sector worth $4.7 billion, the infrastructure sector is around $1.5 billion, and tourism is worth about $167 million.
If the government and private sector continue to support and attract strategic investment As well as strengthening public services and the ability to use technology, especially modern agriculture, that is, agriculture serving industry and processing, Cambodia will continue to consolidate agriculture, which is its traditional economic base, into a basis for liberation and progress towards a processing industry, which is called agro-industry.
In the future, if Cambodia can transform agriculture into more agro-industry, this sector can become a very important driver. To push Cambodian people to reach the goal of having a high income as Cambodia wants in 2050.
Agriculture should not remain agriculture to feed the local population, nor should it be agriculture to export raw materials abroad. But it should be agriculture that collects agricultural products to produce or process them into finished products for export.
