Canada to establish Kingdom trade office

Canada is to establish a local representative office in Cambodia to strengthen bilateral trade between the two nations.

“We will set up a diplomatic office, not an entire embassy. It will be very small to facilitate trade and political relations and hopefully set up by the end of this year,” Canada’s Regional Ambassador to Cambodia, Philip Calvert.

“We already have a lot of direct imports from Cambodia in mostly garments and footwear, but we do want to encourage more two-way direct trade between the countries.”

Each year, Canada imports more than $470 billion in goods and services worldwide. Of that figure, Cambodia contributes less than 1 per cent, or about $690 million.

But Zaki Munshi, Asia project manager for Canada’s Trade Facilitation Office (TFO), said it is likely that a notable portion of Cambodian products are instead being imported via the US, thus diminishing trade between the Kingdom and Canada.

“We are yet to find out how much of US imports are from other nations such as Cambodia, but we expect it to be a very, very high figure. So what the Canadian government needs to do is help Cambodian businesses export direct to Canada, not go through a third country.”