The annual foreign funding for Cambodia is currently below 20 percent of the total national budget, said this morning Samdech Akka Moha Sena Padei Techo Hun Sen, Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Cambodia.

At the launching ceremony of Public Financial Management Reform Programme (PFMRP)-Stage 4 (2023-2027) at Sokha Phnom Penh Hotel, Samdech Techo Hun Sen stated that the good performance of PFMRP has strengthened the mastership and role of the Royal Government in taking responsibility on the nation’s fate by reducing the annual dependence on foreign funding to less than 20 percent of the total national budget.

In the past 30 years, he recalled, the domestic income that we earned accounted for only one-third of the total national budget, which means that about two-thirds needed foreign financial assistance.

“This is the actual result that we have achieved in accordance with the leadership position that I announced publicly in the past: ‘With reform, we live, without reform, we die’,” Samdech Techo Prime Minister underlined.

Anyway, he continued, we must strive to learn and draw experience from past practices and challenges in order to move on to the next level with realistic ambitions and without delay. […] At the same time, we need to be very careful about the context and environmental factors to ensure that the negative impact is minimised as much as possible.

According to the Premier, in 2003, before the implementation of PFMRP, the total national revenue was only 1,821 billion Riel while the national expenditure was some 2,994 billion Riel. 20 years later, in 2023, the national income is estimated to jump to 32,936 billion Riel, while the total expenditure would reach around 41,537 billion Riels.

Source: Agence Kampuchea Presse