Cambodia launches cassava project under China support(2)

Agriculture official and project coordinator Ratana Norng said the cassava sector might generate between 200-300 million U.S. dollars worth of"informal"export revenues a year.

Lu Zhouxiang, first secretary at the department of international trade and economic affairs at China's Ministry of Commerce, said at the event that in the first phase of the project, China had contributed 212,000 U.S. dollars to support 30 Cambodian officials to train in China's Hainan province on the cassava cultivation techniques in late 2011 and early 2012.

"Based on the successful results of the first phase, the second phase project will help move Cambodian producers, processors and exporters of cassava up the value chain," she said."It is our hope that this project will contribute to the Cambodia' s efforts in capacity building, economic diversification and poverty reduction. "

Setsuko Yamazaki, country director of UNDP to Cambodia, said that currently, Cambodian cassava farmers, processors and exporters are facing enormous constraints such as price distortions in neighboring countries, lack of information on price and quality criteria of importing markets and lack of access to technology. "Though cassava has become the second largest agricultural crop in term of income, employment, hectares cultivated and exports, there is very little technical assistance support provided to the sector,"she said.

She added that under the project, UNDP would give particular attention to environment sustainability of cassava cultivation, improved standard quality to promote raw and processed cassava exports to China and the ultimate benefits and sustainability for the poor.

Setsuko said Cambodia is now the seventh largest producer of cassava in Asia and projected that the country would move to the fifth largest producer following Thailand, Indonesia, India and China by 2018.