Opening Ceremony

Opening Ceremony

His Excellency, Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen


Good morning and thank you very much for attending our workshop this morning. On behalf of Cambodian Federation of Employers and Business Associations (CAMFEBBA), I would like to welcome the members of Cambodia Association of Travel Agency (CATA) and Artisans' Association of Cambodia (AAC), who are the participants, and our special guests from Embassies, UNDP, ILOs and trainers.

All participants are here this morning to learn and share the experiences from our trainers improve the SMEs environment in Cambodia. As we know that the SMEs is improving in this country; however, we still be challenged with several obstacles. Today, the experts from several countries will share the experiences and some how to deal with the problem or challenge.


Small and Medium Enterprise (SMEs) are an important part of any national economy. They contribute to significant to employment and output, are a key suppliers of goods and services to large enterprise and can be a vital contributor to export. Those enterprise or companies might be small but together they have role to play in the private sector.

SMEs dominate economic activity in Cambodia and account for a substantial part of employment. Increasingly the key to the development of Cambodia, SMEs make up approximately 99 percent of all enterprises and almost half of all employment. Because of their importance in economic growth and poverty reduction, the Royal Government of Cambodia has emphasized the important role SMEs play through various policy documents including the Second Socio-Economic Development Plan and National Poverty Reduction Strategy. The Government’s ‘Rectangular Strategy’ also emphasizes the importance of the SMEs and sets out 13 SME development policies for strengthening the SME sector. Through these strategies the Government has made it clear that SMEs will be a major emphasis of economic development polices for many years to come.

Ladies and Gentlemen

Tourism and Handicraft are the two to major industries which are leading in the market in Cambodia today. From year to year the market is increasing rapidly because of supporting from the Royal Government of Cambodia with cooperation with the NGOs such as ADB, JICA and especially with ILO. The Royal Government of Cambodia, the Ministry of Tourism and the Ministry of Mines and Energy have developed new policies and projects to improve the climate of SME as mentioned above. Meanwhile other NGOs have tried to build the capacity for private sectors in tourism and handicraft industries by providing workshop, training, study-tour and so on.

Finally I would to express my deep gratitude to ILO sub-regional who supports to conduct this workshop. I wish this workshop will be conducted successfully and wish you all here have good luck to participate this workshop.


Thank you very much.