On the special occasion of celebrating the 50th Year of ASEAN-Japan Friendship and Cooperation, I have the great pleasure and honor of extending my warmest greetings and a hearty welcome to all of the leaders and delegates from ASEAN, particularly Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Manet, to the Commemorative Summit being held in Tokyo through Dec. 18.
I am pleased to acknowledge that ASEAN and Japan, built upon mutual trust, understanding and benefit, have evolved to participating in a wide range of cooperation spanning the political-security, economic and socio-culture pillars through various ASEAN-led mechanisms, with a common determination to maintain regional peace, security, stability and prosperity for the people of both ASEAN and Japan. Among others, significant progress in the ASEAN-Japan partnership has been made through the full and effective implementation of the Revised Implementation Plan of the Vision Statement on ASEAN-Japan Friendship and Cooperation: Shared Vision, Shared Identity, Shared Future.
This year, we celebrate the 50th Year of ASEAN-Japan Friendship and Cooperation with the establishment of the ASEAN-Japan Comprehensive Strategic Partnership. We look forward to the joint adoption of a new vision statement and implementation plan at this summit to chart our future direction in this new chapter of our partnership.
We highly appreciate Japan’s unwavering support for ASEAN centrality and its commitment to working together to strengthen our inclusive, open and fair multilateralism and the international order. Cambodia is committed to working with all ASEAN members and Japan to further promote synergies of cooperation between the ASEAN Outlook on Indo-Pacific initiative, and Japan’s Free and Open Indo-Pacific initiative for mutual benefit in enhancing peace, cooperation and tangible benefits based on the AOIP’s four priorities, via the ASEAN Plus One mechanism.
On this note, I thank Japan for its contribution of $100 million to the Japan-ASEAN Integration Fund 3.0 to support the implementation of the AOIP. We also highly commend Japan’s commitment to mobilizing more than $75 billion from public and private funds in the Indo-Pacific region by 2030, and hope these funds can be used to support the implementation of the Master Plan on ASEAN Connectivity 2025 and the development of high-quality infrastructure.
As Japan is one of ASEAN’s largest trading and investment partners, we value economic ties with Japan and view them as critical to our long-term economic growth. Therefore, we are determined to continue implementing the ASEAN-Japan Ten-Year Strategic Economic Cooperation Roadmap 2016-2025 and the ASEAN-Japan Economic Resilience Action Plan.
With the entry into force of the first protocol to amend the ASEAN-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership, I would like to encourage the full utilization of this agreement to effectively enhance trade in services, movement of people and investments between ASEAN and Japan.
We have acknowledged the remarkable achievement that ASEAN-Japan trade in 2022 reached $268.5 billion, while total foreign direct investment from Japan amounted to $26.7 billion. This ranks Japan as ASEAN’s fourth-largest trade partner and second-largest external source of FDI among the ASEAN dialogue partners in 2022.
The ASEAN-Japan Comprehensive Economic Partnership and the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership have helped exporters and importers to scale up their activities to benefit from the pacts. Under these two frameworks, Cambodia exported $1.09 billion worth of goods to Japan in the first seven months of 2023. From January to July, Cambodia imported goods worth $296 million from Japan. The movement of people, goods, money and information across our borders is becoming increasingly active.
It is also auspicious that this year, Cambodia and Japan are holding commemorative events to celebrate our remarkable 70th anniversary of diplomatic ties, which have also been elevated to a comprehensive strategic partnership.
Cambodia and Japan maintain frequent high-level exchanges and communications at various levels, as evidenced by the ASEAN summit and other related summits last year in Phnom Penh. In early September in Jakarta, our leaders discussed ways to further deepen our long-standing bilateral relations and increase cooperation in a number of key areas, including trade, investment and security. Moreover, on Oct. 30, H.E Sok Chenda Sophea, deputy prime minister and minister of foreign affairs and international cooperation, had a productive telephone conversation with his counterpart H.E. Yoko Kamikawa, and noted with satisfaction the growing cooperation across various sectors, particularly in economic realms. They reiterated their joint commitment to further strengthening and expanding wide-ranging areas of mutually beneficial cooperation and interests.
It is well known that the Cambodian-Japanese partnership, based on friendship, trust and mutual respect, has been steadily fostered with the invaluable assistance and facilitation of the governmental agencies of Japan, including the ASEAN-Japan Centre, the Japan External Trade Organization and the Japan International Cooperation Agency. Both countries have used their comprehensive strategic partnership to attract more Japanese investment and open the market wider for Cambodian products.
In conclusion, while extending my heartfelt appreciation to the government and people of Japan for their continuing support for the socioeconomic development of Cambodia, may I wish the Commemorative Summit for the 50th Year of ASEAN-Japan Friendship and Cooperation great success, with productive outcomes, setting out a new vision for a greater future enhancing our relationship and cooperation.
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