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Regarding to the Economic Land Concession (ELC) in Cambodia

Clarification on the Statement of Development Partners on 11^th Meeting of Government Development Partners Coordination Committee (GDCC), Held on 08 October 2007, Phnom Penh, Cambodia

(Unofficial translation)



 

Based on the Statement of Development Partners on 11^th Meeting of Government Development Partners Coordination Committee (GDCC), which was held on 08 October 2007, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries would like to clarify as the following:

1. The Economic Land Concession more than 10,000 hectares
   There are 5 companies, which is the Royal Government of Cambodia has promised to negotiate for reducing land area to 10,000 hectares. In the result, 1 company was canceled and other 4 companies have fully agreed to reduce to 10,000 hectares.

The next step is to cut out and prepare new maps and revise the contracts.

2. The Economic Land Concession less than 10,000 hectares, which is under management of the provincial authority
   At the present, we have some difficulty to collect information from the provinces. Before that, we have collected some data, but we are not sure the collected date whether correct or not, because some provinces are not reported by written. If the provinces are still not report until the end of March, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries will take necessary measure to appoint the technical staff to collect real data in all provinces of the country.

The collected information of 31 companies from 8 provinces will be posted to the ELC’s website.

3. The benefit for Local Communities and National Economy on provision of Economic Land Concession
   The Royal Government of Cambodia has setup policy for strong cooperation with private development partners, in order to maximize benefit for local community, national economy and as well as encourage investors to invest in the remote area.

Regarding to the size of land concession for providing to the private companies, the government is implementing under laws and regulations concerned, such as Land Law 2001 and Sub-decree on Economic Land Concession. The provision large scale of land it is related to construction processing factories with modern technology and improve additional income for agricultural products and also create job for local community, to absorb agricultural production from farmer communities, which is a family scale or small scale investors.

Actually, family scale agriculture also has economic efficiency, if farmers have enough tools, equipment, finance and modern technology. In this regard, both government and private sector are working hard in providing various services, such as rural credit, marketing service etc.

Moreover, government is under developing community for agriculture development for strengthen and capacity building of farmer communities, in terms of finance, technology and marketing.

Regarding to the speculation, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries and Royal Government is undertaking necessity measure for elimination of these activities.

4. The Canceled Economic Land Concession will use for Social Land Concession
   The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries is ready to cooperate with other institution concerned to conduct a survey to allocate free land for social land concession. In this context, the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries close cooperates with Ministry of Land Management, Urbanization and Construction and other development partners.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries agrees to the statement of the development partners that land sector is very important for social and economic development. In addition to the laws, regulation and land distribution, we should consider the lost of high quality of land for agricultural production and damage quality of land by improper use with natural condition and technology.