Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries

TOKYO - Leaders of the six nations that share the Mekong River have agreed on a 10-year plan to boost growth, promote development and reduce poverty in the region comprising Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, Viet Nam, and China's Yunnan and Guangxi regions.

The decision was taken at the fourth Greater Mekong Subregion (GMS) Summit in Manila, the Philippines. In a joint declaration, GMS leaders endorsed a strategic framework for 2012 to 2022 that calls for a range of new measures to strengthen regional cooperation, including more effective resource utilization and more careful balancing of development with environmental concerns.

GMS is a natural economic area bound together by the Mekong River, covering 2.6 million square kilometers and a combined population of around 326 million.

"The new Strategic Framework for 2012-2022 will move the GMS to the next level through multisector investment projects, policy development, and inter-sector coordination," said Asian Development Bank (ADB) President Haruhiko Kuroda.

Cambodia's 2011 rubber exports and export prices grew by 55 per cent and 131 per cent respectively, according to data from the Ministry of Commerce.

The data shows rubber exports last year totalled 46,727 tonnes, compared to 30,040 tonnes in 2010. Export prices also rose to $200.9 million from US$86.76 million in 2010.

Last year’s surge was primarily due to rising foreign demand and larger production hauls, Ly Phalla, general director of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries’ rubber department, said last week.

This rapid increase was not expected to become a trend, he said.

“The world’s demand for rubber in 2012 is predicted to exceed that in 2011 by only 5.5 per cent due to a recovering Cambodian economy and slowed production in other fields,” Ly Phalla said.

Cambodia's first draft law for the regulation of agriculture cooperatives is near completion, and is expected to reach the National Assembly this year, officials said.

The draft law aims to formalise the Kingdom’s more than 250 cooperatives and provide a framework for those created in the future, officials said.

“This law is important because it is based on the international system that governs cooperatives,” Khem Chenda, director of the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries’ administration department, said.

“Many countries use it to make it easier for farmers to do business,” he said, adding the Food and Agriculture Organisation consulted on the draft law.

Cambodia's fish exports decreased 14 per cent in 2011, although total export revenues rose about 50 per cent on higher market prices, according to a government official.

Nao Thouk, director of the Fisheries Administration at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, said fish exports in 2011 had totalled about 30,000 tonnes, a drop from 35,000 tonnes in 2010.

Despite this, export revenues rose to US$60 million from $40 million in 2010, he said.

Increased export prices fetched in high-demand international markets had resulted in a jump in revenues, Nao Thouk said.

The average price for exported fish in 2011 was $2,000 a tonne, compared to $1,143 a tonne in 2010, he said.

Nao Thouk pointed to the government’s greater emphasis on producing fish for the domestic market as the reason for the drop in total exports.

Crocodile farmers in Siem Reap are turning away from the export of hatchlings to Vietnam, choosing instead sell the reptiles for their skins.

Luon Nam, president of the province’s Crocodile Feeding Association, said yesterday the reliance on Vietnam was an unsustainable strategy for the industry.

Any change in demand from Cambodia’s eastern neighbour left farmers vulnerable to falling prices, he said.

The CFA shipped about 200,000 crocodiles to Vietnam this year. That was 100,000, or 33 per cent, fewer than in 2010, Luon Nam said.