Poor nations meet in Cambodia to discuss trade, financial woes

SIEM REAP, Cambodia (AFP) — Poor countries must use trade as a tool to survive the financial crisis gripping richer nations, Cambodia's premier told a meeting of officials from developing countries Wednesday.

Trade ministers and representatives from nearly 50 nations under the Least Developed Countries grouping gathered for two days of talks in Cambodia's northwestern tourist town of Siem Reap.

Opening the meeting, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen said the world's poorest nations were already suffering "a strong trade barrier", with tariffs and strict controls hampering their access to world markets.

With richer governments now suffering from the credit crunch, they may also cut foreign aid, investment and imports, he said.

Hun Sen called on the grouping to find ways to work together to expand exports and attract foreign private capital to help develop their countries.

"Although the world is facing the current financial crisis we must ensure a transparent, stable and feasible business climate," Hun Sen said.

World Trade Organization director general Pascal Lamy told officials at the meeting that the trade deal was now more important than ever to help poor countries.

"There is a strong sense that we are all on the same boat and that we must act and coordinate together if we are to lift ourselves," he said, according to an official transcript of his remarks.

He said the international community needed to keep in mind "the interests of its poorest and weakest members and deliver on the promises" of more and better development aid.

The financial crisis will "no doubt have profound, and possibly prolonged, effects" on poor countries, he said.

A statement from the UN Industrial Development Organization and the WTO, which jointly organised the conference, said the talks should focus on speeding up trade reform in poor countries.

The Doha round of WTO negotiations is also slated to be discussed in Cambodia on Wednesday and Thursday, the statement said.

Attempts to hammer out a global trade pact have repeatedly broken down as the world's poorest nations and economic powers trade blows.

Developing countries have been pressing for greater access to agricultural markets in the industrialised world. Developed nations are in return seeking a better deal for their manufactured products in developing markets.

Lamy said on Monday in Geneva that negotiators must redouble their efforts to conclude a new trade deal by the end of the year.

Cambodian gov't pins aid hopes on China [because Hun Sen is concerned about not receiving enough Int'l aid due to global financial crisis]

PHNOM PENH, Oct. 17 (Xinhua) -- The Cambodian government will turn to China to make up for any shortfall in foreign aid as the global financial crisis forces Western donors to rethink their assistance to developing countries, national media reported Friday.

"We expect to get 600 million U.S. dollars (in aid) next year as usual because the new (top) donor nation is China," Keat Chhon, Cambodian Minister of Economy and Finance, was quoted by the PhnomPenh Post as saying.

Aid from China last year, at 601 million U.S. dollars, eclipsed the combined pledges from the rest of Cambodia's donors, the Post said.

And as nations struggle to keep their own economies afloat, aid budgets are being slashed, raising alarm in many aid-dependent countries.

They can't spend hundreds of billions of dollars to rescue share markets and then forget a poor country like Cambodia, Keat Chhon said.

Meanwhile, Cambodian Minister of Commerce Cham Prasidh said if the amount of official development aid were to plummet, it would not adversely affect the Cambodian economy.

"We hope we will weather this difficult time. This is a chance for Cambodia," he said, citing the Kingdom's low-end garment exports as a cushion against a global financial slowdown.