US looks beyond garments to deepen Cambodia trade

Local people watch from the roadside as a motorcade with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton passes on its way to the US-Asean business forum and dinner on July 13 in Siem Reap, Cambodia. AFP

23/07/2012
By Steve Finch in Siem Reap
Bangkok Post

The biggest US trade delegation to Cambodia in decades joined Secretary of State Hillary Clinton here as the two countries look to expand their economic relationship beyond exports of cheaply produced garments.

Executives from Google, Goldman Sachs and MasterCard were among the cast of US multinationals that attended the US-Asean Business Forum in Siem Reap on July 13 following Mrs Clinton’s stops in Vietnam and Laos.

“On the economic front, there is much more room for us to grow together, so we are working to foster economic activity in very tangible ways,” the secretary of state said at the US-Asean Ministerial Meeting in Phnom Penh.

Leading a delegation of more than 20 American companies to Hanoi in a meeting with Prime Minister Nguyen Tan Dung, Mrs Clinton noted the trade relationship with Vietnam had grown more than twenty-fold since 2001 to US$22 billion last year.

9th Meeting of the High-Level Panel on an ASEAN Human Rights Body

Representatives of the Cambodian civil society participated in the meeting: Ou Virak (L) and Pa Nguon Tieng (2nd from R).
Missing: Om Yen Tieng, Cambodian government representative. A lower level government official was sent in to "listen" to the meeting.
Members of the Working Group for an ASEAN Human Rights Mechanism.
Members of the High Level Panel of ASEAN meets with Civil Society Groups on March 20, 2009 in Kuala Lumpur discussing the term of reference (TOR) that set out the establishment of an ASEAN Human Rights Body. The first draft of the TOR was submitted to the ASEAN Summit earlier this year in Thailand but was not made public due to objection by Cambodian Foreign Minister. The Civil Society Groups raised this issue among number other concerns during the meeting as non disclosure prevent input from the people which undermining the principle of the "people-centered ASEAN".