PHNOM PENH: The government is reviewing its own performance over the last three months since Prime Minister Hun Manet took over on August 22. Senior ministers and the PM himself have declared the start of the administration a success, especially when it comes to growing Cambodia’s economy.
Minister Delegate Attached to the Prime Minister in charge of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Jean-François Tan, said that he and other delegates accompanying the PM noted that his main priority is economic diplomacy in pursuit of economic benefits for the Cambodian nation.
Mr. Tan, who accompanied the PM to the UN General Assembly in New York in September, said that all meetings with foreign leaders were an opportunity for the president to strengthen bilateral cooperation. He said that all foreign leaders the PM met with agreed to work with Cambodia in areas like trade, investment, agriculture, education, tourism, culture, connection of production chains, and especially people-to-people connections.
He said that every visit abroad as well as some events in Cambodia have presented opportunities for the PM to meet with businessmen and foreign investors who could help bring more development to Cambodia. The PM has attended business forums across the globe including ASEAN Business Summits in Indonesia and China, the US-Cambodia Business Forum in New York, and the European-ASEAN Business Council in Phnom Penh. The senior minister said that businesspeople at all events have expressed a desire to invest in Cambodia.
He stressed that the PM’s efforts in economic diplomacy are for the benefit of the Cambodian people.
"The pursuit of economic benefits to the Cambodian people is in line with the first phase of the Royal Government of Cambodia's Pentagon Strategy,” he said. “[Its purpose is] to bring about ‘job growth, efficiency and sustainability’ by setting five key priorities: people, roads, water, electricity and technology, especially digital technology.”
Jean-François Tan was managing director of Radio France International (RFI) in Khmer for 30 years before he gave up his position to become a senior minister for Prime Minister Hun Manet. Specializing in foreign affairs, he has accompanied the PM on many trips abroad during the first three months of his new position.
