June 27, 2022
PHNOM PENH – Prime Minister Hun Sen called for cooperation and a spirit of openness and support in the multilateral trading system, as well as reductions in trade barriers for a post-Covid-19 world, amid the current unpredictable development patterns arising from geopolitical competition and other challenges.
The prime minister made the remark virtually at the High-level Dialogue of BRICS-Plus Leaders on Global Development, themed “Fostering a Global Development Partnership for the New Era to Jointly Implement the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development”, held on the night of June 24.
He said the Covid-19 crisis has hindered socio-economic progress on the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development in developing countries over the past two years.
And the region and the world are confronted with increasingly acute, complicated and unpredictable challenges to development, stemming from stressors such as geopolitical competition; military, trade and technological wars; climate change; and monetary policy tightening, he added.
The premier stressed that these factors have triggered changes in the global economic architecture and disrupted trends related to globalisation, all of which has introduced substantial shocks to the global value chain and reduced productivity.
“We must adhere to the spirit of openness and support for the multilateral trading system as well as strengthen multilateralism, especially promote the openness for international trade and reduce trade barriers, particularly on strategic commodities such as food, medicine and energy, in order to foster sustainable economic growth and enhance the resilience of regional and global value chains.
“At the same time, strengthening and expanding cooperation in new socio-economic sectors is also a priority. As such, we should devote special attention on increasing cooperation in areas of capacity development and acceleration of digital transformation and development of the digital economy, which is a new source of growth, especially to help least developed countries [LDC] to meet the actual needs for the development of the digital economy,” he said.
To nurture sustainable socio-economic development, Hun Sen suggested seizing strategic opportunities to improve the green economic transition, such as leveraging green technologies, promoting energy transition and providing support towards the expansion of green infrastructure cooperation.
“As the chair of ASEAN in 2022, Cambodia will strive to play a more active role to further strengthen ASEAN cooperation with our partners in order to promote post-crisis economic recovery in an inclusive, sustainable and resilient manner towards achieving the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development,” he said.