Mr. Sun Chanthol, Senior Minister, Ministry of Commerce led the Cambodian delegation at the 3rd India-CLMV Business Conclave organized by Ministry of Commerce, Government of India and Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) at Mammalapuram, India from 12-13 January 2016. The theme of this Conclave was “India – CLMV Economic Integration: Developing Regional Value Chains”. A 12 member business delegation accompanied Senior Minister Sun Chanthol.

Smt. Nirmala Sitharaman, Minister of State for Commerce & Industry (IC), Government of India noted in her keynote address that “trade links and ties between India and the CLMV countries can be much better, and the two governing principles, connectivity and economic integration with regional value chains are crucial.” She added that “India’s trade with the CLMV countries is over 11,000 million USD and there is immense potential.” The tri-lateral highway, connectivity in the North East, port connectivity improvement and the Act East policy are moves in that direction. The Minister stated that there was a need for Indian banks to establish their branches overseas and the proposal of a Project development fund, an important instrument to handhold manufacturing units in the CLMV countries was an important step being taken by Government of India.

Mr. Sun Chanthol, Senior Minister, Minister of Commerce, Kingdom of Cambodia said “It’s important to network and share best-practices and strengthen businesses ties between the countries. The trade investment between India and ASEAN countries is crucial since CLMV countries cover 32% of ASEAN region and has a huge market for Indian products with 165 million strong population. This will attract considerable amount of FDI from India. He briefed potential Indian investors about the investment regime in Cambodia noting that investment law provides very generous investment incentives such as low corporate income tax of 20%, up to nine years tax holiday, no restriction on foreign ownership in every economic sector, no exchange control, and no nationalization and price control. Furthermore, Cambodia benefits from the Generalized System of Preferences (GSP) from many countries and Everything-But-Arms (EBA) from the European Union, which allows quota-free and duty-free export of almost all Cambodian-made products to the EU.