Phnom Penh: The Council for the Development of Cambodia (CDC) is committed to improving the ease of doing business in Cambodia aimed at attracting foreign investment. CDC is reviewing the existing regulations and procedures to identify issues for reform with the goals of eliminating complexity in doing business and creating a more transparent investment environment, said H.E. Sun Chanthol, Deputy Prime Minister and CDC First President.

According to Agence Kampuchea Presse, ‘In order to attract investment in the context of likely-to-happen trade war pressures, CDC is reviewing to do more reforms, to identify the issues, and provide more incentives to investors,’ he told reporters upon a meeting on Thursday. CDC is committed to creating a friendly investment environment to all national and foreign investors by improving and giving competitive incentives, simplifying business registration processes, he added.

Last year, Cambodia attracted a 414 fixed-asset investment with a total capital of US$6.9 billion, up 40 percent from US$4.92 in the year before, according to a CDC’s report. China was the top foreign investor in the Kingdom, the report added. The approved projects focused mainly on the garment, travel goods, and footwear sectors, hotel development, hydroelectric power stations, freshwater ports, solar power plants, agriculture, amusement parks, car tire plants, special economic zones, infrastructure, and telecommunication, among others.

The CDC’s first vice president said that the Kingdom has witnessed an upsurge in investment due to Cambodia’s peace, political stability, macroeconomic stability and multilateral and bilateral free trade agreements such as the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) and bilateral free trade agreements with China, South Korea and the United Arab Emirates.