Cambodia-Korea bilateral trade jumps 22.8 percent in Q1

The bilateral free trade between Cambodia and South Korea surged 22.8 percent to $234.4 million in the first three months of this year.

Figures from the General Department of Customs and Excise showed that Cambodia exported $61.3 million worth of goods to South Korea from January to March, a 22.2 percent increase compared to the same period last year.

The Kingdom imported $173 million worth of goods from South Korea, a 23.1 percent increase.

The Ministry of Commerce’s spokesman Penn Sovicheat said yesterday that the two countries are expected to see an increase in bilateral trade volume once the Cambodia-Korea Free Trade Agreement is put into force.

South Korea is Cambodia’s main market for industrial products – clothes and footwear, Sovicheat said.

Cambodia has already ratified the FTA and South Korea is in the process of ratifying it, he said.

“Once they have done it and put the FTA into force, we expect it will push the trade volume between the two nations,” Sovicheat said.

South Korea’s major exports to Cambodia include cars, machinery, textiles, and agricultural and marine products. It mostly imports textile-based goods and agricultural products from Cambodia.

 Cambodia and Korea are members of the multilateral trade pact of Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), which came into force on January 1, 2022.

Under the agreement and the envisioned multilateral trade pact of RCEP, Cambodia will lift tariffs on 93.8 percent of all products traded, and South Korea will remove tariffs on 95.6 percent of all items.

The RCEP is a regional trade pact covering 10 Asean nations and its five dialogue partners — South Korea, China, Japan, Australia, and New Zealand.

South Korea had pledged to expand economic and trade cooperation with Cambodia after signing the agreement last year, said South Korean President Moon Jae-in in a meeting with Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen in Seoul, in February.

According to the Korean International Trade Association, bilateral trade between Cambodia and Korea topped $965 million in 2021, a year-on-year increase of 9 percent.

Source: Khmer Times