(Phnom Penh)

With high permission from Samdech Moha Borvor Thipadei HUN MANET,
Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Cambodia, His Excellency CHHIENG YANARA,
Senior Minister in-charge of Special Missions and Second Vice-chairman of Council for the Development of Cambodia and His Excellency UENO Atsushi, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of Japan to Cambodia co-chaired the Policy Dialogue on Official Development Assistance (ODA) between the Royal Government of Cambodia and the Government of Japan on November 6, 2023 at the Council for the Development of Cambodia. The meeting was attended by His/Her Excellency Secretaries of State, Under-secretaries of State and senior officials from line-ministries of the Royal Government of Cambodia, representatives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Japan, representatives of the Embassy of Japan in Cambodia, and representatives of the Japan International Cooperation Agency in Cambodia (JICA) around 130 participants in total.

To begin, His Excellency Senior Minister expressed his warm welcome to
the Japanese delegation and his appreciation to the Government and People of Japan for their continued support in socio-economic development of Cambodia. This dialogue is the first dialogue in the Royal Government of Cambodia's Mandate of the 7th Legislature of the National Assembly and is in conjunction with the celebration of
the 70th Anniversary of Cambodia-Japan Diplomatic Relations, which will be held in late 2023. In addition, His Excellency Senior Minister underlined the new policy framework of the Royal Government, which placed great emphasis on development cooperation to achieve Cambodia's vision of becoming an upper-middle-income country by 2030 and a high-income country by 2050. In response, His Excellency Ambassador expressed
his sincere congratulations to the new Royal Government with Samdech Moha Borvor Thipadei HUN MANET as the Prime Minister. Additionally, His Excellency Ambassador informed the meeting on the revision of Japan's Development Cooperation Charter that the Government of Japan revised this June as well as the review of the Country Assistance Policy for Cambodia. Both sides comprehensively discussed and exchanged views on challenges that arose from the implementation of development projects in recent times to further strengthen future project implementation. Both sides also agreed to continue the existing development cooperation by focusing on priority areas such as 1) Digital Society Transformation, 2) Sustainable Economic Development and
3) the Development of Soft and Hard Infrastructure as well as other priority areas consistent with the Pentagonal Strategy-Phase I and Japan's Development Cooperation Charter. The Japanese side will take into consideration the result of today's meeting to encapsulate in the new Country Assistance Policy for Cambodia that the Government of Japan plans to prepare in 2024.

Japan is one of the most important development partners of Cambodia. In 1992-2022, the Government of Japan provided development assistance to Cambodia approximately USD 4,319 million equivalent to 14% of the total development assistance Cambodia received from all development partners. The volume of support from
the Government of Japan is expected to increase through the signing of the Exchange of Notes under the Comprehensive Strategic Partnership between both countries.
In addition, the Policy Dialogue on ODA between the Royal Government of Cambodia and the Government of Japan had been organized 13 times. The 14th
Policy Dialogue was initially to be organized in 2020; however, it was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.