Thursday, June 07, 2007

Public confidence alone cannot help the economy when corruption and lawlessness are rampant in Cambodia

June 07, 2007
Cambodian PM stresses public confidence as foremost condition for financial development

Particular attention has to be paid to the means of strengthening of public confidence, an essential element for fostering the role of banks in the economy, Prime Minister Hun Sen said on Thursday.

"To this end, the concerned authorities need to create an environment conducive to activity of a sound banking sector, and develop a strong and well functioning infrastructure for banking activities as well as for fair and competitive market structures," he told a symposium about the partnership between the government and the Asian Development Bank (ADB).

Meanwhile, he said, developing a national payment system is one of the key priorities in the kingdom's Financial Sector Development Strategy in 2006-2015.

"Without an efficient and wide-reaching national payment system, the financial sector will not be able to provide effective intermediation, or offer its services throughout the economy," he said.

The enactment of the Law on Negotiable Instruments and Payment Transactions is a necessary first step that gives the National Bank of Cambodia (NBC) clear authority over the payment system and to make improvements, he said.

The design of the payment system should ensure that the needs of individual consumers as well as corporations in the real sector will be adequately accommodated, he added.

In addition, he said, given Cambodia's current economic structure, it is very important to focus on the role of micro-finance and entrepreneurship in poverty alleviation and economic development.

"Within this framework, I am glad to see that the micro-finance sector reserves a chapter of its own in the Financial Sector Development Strategy for 2006-2015. Currently, the financial sector has focused its services mainly on the advanced sectors, while micro enterprises still not gained adequate access to financial services," he said.

To address the financing needs of small farmers, he said, the competent authorities need to be opened to innovative ideas, encourage banks to lend to MFIs using proper micro-finance methodologies, but at the same time Cambodia needs to also set in place certain parameters to ensure that risks associated with agriculture financing are properly managed.

During his speech, Hun Sen also stressed the importance of the introduction of financial market.

"It can help to mobilize the Cambodian people's saving and channel them into long-term investments in social, economic and infrastructure projects. A good start for a financial market would be the government bonds, which are very crucial for the development of money and inter-bank market," he said.

Additionally, he highlighted the importance of the insurance sector, saying that "with increased per capita income there is also great potential to develop the insurance market and the supervisory and regulatory framework should be enhanced, while skills and experiences on risk management need to be upgraded."

He also outlined the establishment of financial institutions and legal framework as well as capacity building and development as supporting factors for the financial sector.

Cambodia's economy enjoyed double-digit growth rate in the last decade and urgency has been shown for development in the financial sector. The kingdom now still lacks stock and futures market.

Before the economic boom, Cambodian was ravaged by years of war and most banks were just unable to provide enough cash, thus crippling the depositors' confidence and undermining the financial construction.

Source: Xinhua

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

YEE. sound like he got a good sound advice from one of his foreigh advisors

Anonymous said...

Hope he still remember up to yesterday!

Anonymous said...

No need for corrupt CPP official telling the private sector about trust.
If Hun Sen want to know about transparency, alliviate poverty and public trust, just talk to ACLEDA bank. They can teach HUN Sen's criminal gang about proper capitalism.

Anonymous said...

Does Hun Sen understand any thing in what he said?