Address at the Conferment of Associate’s Degree

Address at the Conferment of Associate’s Degree of the 3^rd Promotion, Bachelor’s Degree of the 3^rd Promotion, Master’s Degree of the 3^rd and 4^th Promotion, Master’s Degree in Information Technology of the 1^st and 2^nd Promotion (International Program), and Doctoral Degree of the 1^st Promotion

National Education Institute, August 5, 2009

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, Distinguished National and International Guests, Board of Management, Lecturers, Students, and all Awardees!

Today, my wife and I have a great pleasure to be here in the conferment of associate’s, bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees to 4,709 graduates of Build Bright University. On behalf of the Royal Government and myself, I would like to commend the university’s board of management, national and foreign lecturers, and officials for their valuable contribution to the development of human resources and higher education in Cambodia. Since the establishment of this university nearly a decade ago, numerous achievements have been made and these will further accelerate our development progress. In particular, today’s conferment represents another significant achievement that will help our society prosper faster.

According to our reports, this institution has been a major partner of the Royal Government in developing human resources, a prerequisite, especially for countries emerging from civil wars, for economic restoration and development. In this sense, I support and further encourage this university to expand its operation and course availability to bring about benefits to the society and human beings in accordance with the Royal Government’s vision of human resource development. In particular, the university has today produced a number of needed intellectuals for developing the country.

Taking this opportunity, I would like to congratulate all the graduates for your hard work and accomplishment. The certificates represent your level of study and knowledge. The certificates also bring about pride to individual graduates, their families, and the country as a whole; in short, this is a pride for all of us.

The successful completion of your courses indeed represents the Royal Government’s effort in building human resources to underpin socio-economic development. Today’s accomplishment stem from the core factors including peace, political stability, security and social order; and the Royal Government’s firm policy on promoting participation from the private sector, and development partners and agencies to ensure sustainable progress in all sectors. What we are seeing also originates from the Royal Government’s proper direction and commitment in restoring and building human resources that will become a concrete foundation for ensuring sustainable growth. These supporting factors have brought positive impact to the education sector. Through this, we can say today’s outcome is just one of many other achievements in our effort to restore and build human resources with competency, quality and productivity for taking part in socio-economic development and poverty reduction.

In general, a notable progress is seen in the education sector, especially at higher education level. This progress cannot be separated from the Royal Government’s proper education policy, and effort of all stakeholders in the education sectors.

Education is costly and long-term investment, and the end result tends to be invisible. However, this investment is a key to productivity and efficiency improvement as education lays out methodologies, formulas, models, and ways to promote growth in other sectors.

The experiences of socio-economic development have shown that intellectual capital has been playing significant role in dealing with challenges and this human capital has also continued to provide good education, knowledge and experiences to general people in the society through composing the written articles and research reports and new social and scientific research findings. Along with that, in the era of knowledge and information technology, the intellectual capital has played more important role in speeding the economic potential, comparative advantage and national competitiveness by trying to attract the maximum benefit from this intellectual capital. These issues have guided the development of education sector and training by highlighting the important roles of all relate stakeholders to this sector, especially the education and training institutions by promoting further efforts to make sure that our education and training will be able to support and respond to the changes of the global economic forces, which are more competitive and fast changing.

At the same time, the success of human resource development has to rely on the ability of education institutions in all levels, especially at the higher education level, which is the highest education institution, by providing both theoretical knowledge and implementation more extensively. Moreover, the success of training can not be separated from the active participation of the private sector and various development partners in the context of globalized market economy. At the present, Cambodia has strengthened and expanded partnership with local and international private sector as it is a leading sector, an engine of economic growth to enhance competitiveness aiming to ensure competitiveness for quality, nobility and prestige.

As for the time being, all higher education institutions have to pay more attention to expand and diversify their training programs to conform to the international standard, in which there are curriculums with more specializations such as management, law, economics, tourism and greeting, scientific technology, agriculture, engineering, mechanics, electronic, small and medium enterprises, which can actually pose the possibility and ability of producing national intellectual capital.

All higher education institutions are required to check at the start whether the programs and specializations created correspond to the objectives of enriching human resources and making comprehensive contribution to development. Along with that, the academic curriculum must adhere to the practical implementation including arts and sports. In this regard, all higher education institutions have to pay attention to the establishment of internship in factories, enterprises, resorts, restaurants and hotels as well as creating the performance of arts and sport competition to make sure our students are better aware and pleasant in their studies. Moreover, I would like to suggest the Ministry of Education, Youth and Sport to organize the annual national competition on social science and real science research. This research competition must be urgently implemented. As for those, who receive the award today, they have to be suitably honored because this factor is the pushing mechanism to the research study, which is the foundation for development.

The progress of human resource development, in fact, is the reinforcing factor for the development of other sectors and become the interrelated and complementary mechanism.

These results have, practically, had positive impact on the linkages of social organs by strengthening the culture of peace, ensuring peace and security and social order, respecting human rights and dignity and promoting democracy. Moreover, these achievements have provided tremendous opportunities for the people of Cambodia to actively participate in nation building and development.

In fact, the completion of your studies today is an excellent opportunity for participating in the development of our country according to the special expertise of each individual. Yet, you must be aware that in the current context, the world is now in a stage of intensive competition in all fields and sectors couple with the global economic and financial crisis, resulting in the imbalance between the number of employment in the job market and the number of graduate students, which make them even more difficult in looking for jobs. I this sense, those who graduated today, must try your utmost to seek for jobs in both public and private sectors or be self-employed.

Even though some jobs are not desirable now, they can be used as the stepping stones toward obtaining better and a more desirable job in the future. In parallel, you must keep generating innovative ideas, with a sense of responsibility, leadership and ownership, be disciplined and have good moral and conscience, which would enable you to be successful in your respective future professions.

At the same time, I would like to confirm with degree awardees that the knowledge and technical skills that you have studied so far will become your personal and social long-term investment. Competency, knowledge, innovative ideas, and skills are becoming vital capital in the current global context, which is different from the past when each country relied on raw material resources such as coal, oil and other mineral resources, coupled with the mean of production and other supporting infrastructure, which would enable it to gain competitive advantage over other nations without such resources. Therefore, you must make the best use of your priceless capital appropriately, consciously and innovatively, as well as to keep constantly build your capacity through self-study and research. Obviously, I am optimistic that all of you who are receiving your degrees at the moment will become the core capital who possessed genuine technical skills, knowledge and know-how, and always bear work responsibility with great virtue, moral, and be intellectual of rationality. Starting from the progress of each of you and each of your family who are the social cells, I believe that the whole society will also be able to achieve prosperity.

Before closing, my wife and I would like to wish all Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, national and internal guests, professors, university officials, especially all degree awardees and students Four Gems of Buddhist Blessings.

Address at the Closing of the 2008 Tourism Stocktaking Conference

Address at the Closing of the 2008 Tourism Stocktaking Conference in the 1^st Semester of 2009, and Direction Setting for the 2^nd Semester of 2009 and 2010

Chaktomuk Conference Hall, July 30, 2009

- Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen,

- Dear all participants!

Today it is my great honor and pleasure to be here in the closing of the 2008 Tourism Stocktaking Conference in the 1^st Semester of 2009, and Direction Setting for the 2^nd Semester of 2009 and 2010.

Taking this opportunity, on behalf of the Royal Government of Cambodia, I would like to congratulate the Ministry of Tourism on its remarkable achievements, especially in spite of the impact of the global financial crisis, political instability in some neighboring countries, and the outbreak of swine flue H1N1 on Cambodia’s tourism sector. All tourism achievements reflect the successful implementation of the Royal Government’s Rectangular Strategy – Phase II.

Tourism has been a growth pillar for Cambodia for years. Due to the global financial crisis, our tourism sector stagnated during late 2008 and in the first half of 2009. However, the Royal Government is determined to boost this sector in the short term, medium term and long term by ensuring peace, political stability, social order, tourists’ safety, further construction of physical infrastructure, improvement of legal framework and institutional capacity, human resource development and diversification of tourism market and so forth. To strengthen tourism sector in the wake of the global financial crisis, I have recently instructed the Steering Committee for Private Sector Development to exchange dialogues with the private sector and relevant development partners to monitor Cambodia’s tourism situation and propose practical recommendations to address the current challenges.

I have also appealed to the private sector to create more attractive tour packages with reduced accommodation costs and free packages of extra services. In this spirit, in addition to the Royal Government’s effort to create an environment conducive to the growth in tourism sector, we expect the private sector to do its utmost to improve its own competing ability, and efficiency and quality of its tour services. I have also appealed to those employed in the tourism sector to work together to improve the quality of tour services, a pre-requisite not only for the growth of tourism sector but also to mitigate the impact of global financial crisis in the short term.

I am pleased with and appreciative with the performance of the Ministry of Tourism, relevant institutions and the private sector that have collaborated closely to take measures to mitigate the impact of the global financial crisis on Cambodia’s tourism sector. In spite of limited success, this indicates our committed responsibility and joint determination. I strongly support the publishing of the stocktaking report, discussion and contribution from all participants for addressing the challenges during this difficult period to realize the Royal Government’s strategic objectives.

Taking this opportunity, I would like to raise some recommendations for the implementation of tourism sector development strategy as follows:

1. Promotion and Market: The Ministry of Tourism and the private sector must cooperate closely to promote tourism industry both domestically and internationally through all means, especially those markets in ASEAN, ASEAN plus 3, plus India and some emerging markets such as Russia and the Middle East while maintaining our existing markets. We also have to organize more tourism events as well as cultural and sport events to attract more tourists.

Adding to the reduced service charge in order to provide discount tour packages and international promotion, we need to ensure the comprehensive and far-reaching tourism promotion by encouraging domestic tourist movement and linking this to the campaign of “Cambodia – Kingdom of Wonder” and “Clean City, Clean Resort and Good Services” movement.

At the same time, we must make advertisement through the homepage of the Ministry of Tourism, Cambodian embassies, consulate general and consulate centers in foreign countries by linking it to all homepages of other state and private ministries/institutions and civil societies in conformity to the concept of “All for tourism and tourism for all”. Furthermore, the Ministry of Tourism must immediately establish and put into operation tourism information centers in Phnom Penh, Siem Reap city, Sihaknouk Province and at other key tourism sites such as the historic cultural sites, the South-west eco-tourism and the North-east eco-tourism sites and those areas surrounding the Tonle Sap lake. Moreover, the Ministry of Tourism must cooperate with the Ministry of Culture and Fine Art, institution concerned and the private sector to organize events, especially to advertise about Khmer civilization and culture during various occasions and functions at resorts, hotels and restaurants.

I would like our embassies in foreign countries, especially in key international markets, to make more efforts to promote tourism advertising activities. The Ministry of Tourism and the Ministry of Foreign Affair and International Cooperation must effectively work together.

2. Visa Issue: So far we have exempted visa for 5 ASEAN member countries from which about 400,000 tourists came in 2008, which is equivalent to around USD 8millions of loss revenue if visa fees are to be applied. However, the Royal Government understands clearly about the benefit of visa’s revenues and those revenues derived from tourists’ expenditure in the country, which generate numerous numbers of employment for the citizen.

The government will continuously consider promoting visa exemption with the first country in ASEAN market. I agreed with the initiative that we should issues visa free of charge for a limited period during crisis time. At the same time, I would like to encourage the implementation of Single Visa policy with other countries in ASEAN too, because it was my former initiative. While the implementation of single visa with Thailand is rather slow, I think applying this policy with Singapore or Vietnam is appropriate by just adopting the sample agreement with Thailand to discuss about the convenience and speed, because this is the key to facilitate the travelling of tourists from 3^rd country coming to our region without asking for different visas for different country destinations. In this connection, the Ministry of Tourism must cooperate with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation to achieve this task.

I would like the Ministry of Tourism to work with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation to review and further publicize policy of visa on arrival widely, because a majority of tourists do not seem to be aware of this policy despite advertisement efforts for many years.

On the other hand, the inter-ministerial committee mechanism for facilitating the travel and transportation of tourists and passengers at Poipet international border gate and at other international border gates, the Ministry of Tourism must, through the inter-ministerial mechanism, work with relevant ministries/institutions to expedite development of hospitality infrastructure at Dong Krolor and Poipet international border gates and the construction of international tourism port at Kep.

3. Transportation: I would like to compliment the effort to work with the Philippine embassy to enable direct flight from Philippine to Cambodia (because between Philippine and Cambodia is visa-free) and we must make more effort to promote direct flights from Indonesia and Japan as well. The State Secretariat for Civil Aviation must undertake this task and provide all kinds of facilitation to all requests from airliners, and must bear in mind that travelling and transportation are the challenges and key issues for the development in the tourism sector.

With respect to easing travel and transportation, I would like to command that: we must jointly eradicate all kinds of misconducts by bad people or bad officials who always disturb and cause difficulties to tourists. The Inter-ministerial Committee, with the Minister of Tourism as the chair and the General Commissioner of National Police as the Permanent Vice-Chairman has enough right to undertake this task efficiently. Furthermore, we have the tourism law which clearly state about the penalty, hence the committee must keep implementing this task effectively.

4. Strengthening development and improving the supporting environment at key tourist destinations: Siem Reap is an important tourism destination with the largest number of visiting tourist in the Kingdom of Cambodia. In this sense, we should not only rely on our tourism sector development plan but we must continue to implement this plan quickly and comprehensively while other countries in the world are in fierce competition for attracting tourists after the incidences of the global economic crisis and pandemic which are still casting the impact on their countries. The important points that we have to strengthen and jointly expand tourism development in Siem Reap – Angkor, include ensuring the increase in traffic order and safety, road expansion, facilitation of the waterway travelling, sewage system preparation and waste management and environmental protection, improvement of sanitation along the streets and at public spaces. Along with that, the promotion of Cambodia’s tourism sector to the world must show about the good environment of Cambodia, especially at famous tourism sites such as Siem Reap, Phnom Penh Capital City and Sihanouk Province.

I would like the Ministry of Tourism to cooperate with related institutions to smoothly pay more attention to this work.

5. Sustainable Development: The main objective of the law has clearly shown the need for sustainable development in tourism sector with quality and efficiency, in which it has clearly illustrated the process for preparing tourism development plan at the national and regional level, which are required to be approved by the Royal Government, and the sub-national tourism development plan by the sub-national administrative authority, but has to be consistent with the regional tourism development plan. Therefore, from now on, tourism development plan at all levels have to be firmly cooperated among related ministries/institutions and the sub-national level of authority to ensure sustainable development of the tourism sector. At the same time, we must clearly understand about those violation which may spoil or impact on the natural cultural environment such as maintaining the beach, island, various ecotourism sites, which are the most attractive natural resorts.

I would like to support and encourage the research which recognizes a number of tourism resorts as the responsible tourism development areas with high care and responsibility in order to make sure that the national and international tourists can directly visit the nature because this is also the tendency of the current society as well. But, this work has to be seriously balanced about the conservation and development by not allowing the conservation get in the way of development and using the development to destroy conservation, yet they have to be done with high conscience and consideration for our benefit and that of our future generations.

Taking this opportunity, I would like to appeal investment companies, which have already been principally approved by the Royal Government, to prepare the master plan as soon as possible and rightly put it into implementation. The Ministry of Tourism have to cooperate with other related sectors and the Council for the Development of Cambodia (CDC) in order to help observe and monitor the implementation of the investment projects for the sake of promoting plan to attract tourists. I would also like to appreciate the provincial/municipal development management committees, who have put greatest efforts in the development of tourist attraction objectives and resorts within their framework, especially pay attention to the community based tourism, the creation of local tourism community, the promotion of various mechanisms to reduce poverty of the people.

In fact, we have been proud that currently our people become better aware of the organic agricultural products and craftsmanship products, which are full of creativity and good packaging in order to replace the imported products. These can be considered as local exporting or the replacement of imports, which allow us to save considerable amount of foreign currencies as well as contributing to the reduction of the economic downturn in tourism sector.

I have also observed with attention to the awareness campaign of Cambodia: Kingdom of Wonder and the “Clean City, Clean Resort and Good Services” movement. I have thought that we have done a lot of good things, but we have to try further to make sure this work can be more successful and to transform Cambodia into the most attractive destination for visitors in the region.

Now, we have an Inter-ministerial Committee to lead and push the awareness campaign of Cambodia: Kingdom of Wonder and the “Clean City, Clean Resort and Good Services” movement, and I agree to work as an honorary president due to the understanding that this work is significant. I would like the secretariat of this committee to convene a regular review meeting by awarding annual appreciation.

I hope that Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, related private and public sectors, will try your utmost to cooperate with one another to develop Cambodia’s tourism sector with quality, sustainability, efficiency and especially, working together to make sure that tourism sector in Cambodia can be sustained in the face of this crisis stage and pave the way for Cambodia to become the destination for cultural and natural tourism with attractiveness in the region and the world.

At the end, I would like to wish Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen the four gems of Buddhist blessings: Longevity, Nobility, Health and Strength.

May I announce the Closing of 2008 Tourism Stocktaking Conference in the 1^st Semester of 2009 and Direction Setting for the 2^nd Semester of 2009 and 2010 hereinafter!

Address at the Signing Ceremony of the Agreement

Address at the Signing Ceremony of the Agreement on the Establishment of Cambodia National Airlines between Cambodia and Vietnam National Airlines and the Introduction of Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam in Cambodia

Phnom Penh, July 26, 2009

Your Excellency Truong Vinh Trong, Deputy Prime Minister of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam,

Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen!

It is my great pleasure to be here in the Signing Ceremony of the Agreement on the Establishment of Cambodia National Airlines between Cambodia and Vietnam Airlines and the Introduction of Bank for Investment and Development of Vietnam in Cambodia. This ceremony is indeed held at a time when both countries are pushing hard to advance cooperation in all sectors.

Long-term and sustainable economic development requires joint effort of the Royal Government and both domestic and foreign private sector. In this sense, Cambodia and Vietnam are working together to ensure that this opportunity will bring about prosperity to both countries.

Taking this opportunity, I would like to thank and praise leaders of the Party and the Government of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam for supporting the initiatives raised by Cambodia counterpart to realize the establishment of the National Airline “Cambodia Angkor Air - CAAir” which is a joint venture, 51% owned by Cambodia and the remaining 49% owned by Vietnam Airlines. I believe that this joint venture will take part in strengthening the traditional friendship and bilateral cooperation between the government and people of both countries.

The establishment of the Cambodia National Airlines which is partly owned by the experienced Vietnam Airlines that is equipped with sufficient human resources, will take part in the Royal Government’s Open Sky policy through the improvement of flight services for Cambodian people and inbound and outbound tourists.

The success of the Cambodia National Airlines will bring about national pride and promote tourism development which is a pillar of growth. Taking this opportunity, I would like to urge the management of the newly formed company to pay specific attention on daily operation and delivery of safe flights to meet international standard.

Along with the signing ceremony of the agreement on the establishment of Cambodia National Airlines, we will also issue insurance license, bank license and business license to Vietnamese investors in Cambodia.

Through this, on behalf of the Royal Government of Cambodia, I would like to extend my welcome and support to all Vietnamese companies investing in Cambodia; and I hope this cross-border investment will bring about closer bond of friendship between the people of both countries as well as closer economic cooperation on the basis of mutual benefits.

Finally I wish Excellency Truong Vinh Trong, Deputy Prime Minister of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen happiness and success for your future endeavors.

Address at the Launch of the National Airlines, “Cambodia Angkor Air”

Phnom Penh, July 27, 2009

- Your Excellency Truong Vinh Trong, Deputy Prime Minister of the Socialist Repulic of Vietnam

- Excellencies, Lok Chum Teav, Lok Okhnas, Ladies and Gentlemen, Distinguished National and International Guests

- Dear Compatriots,

I and my wife have a great honor and pleasure to be here in the launch of “Cambodia Angkor Air” which is jointly owned by the private sector and the state. Taking this opportunity, I would like to extend my warmest welcome to H.E. Truong Vinh Trong, Deputy Prime Minister of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and all delegates who spare your valuable time to attend this historic event. The launch of Cambodia Angkor Air represents another pride of Cambodia in its effort to revive its National Airlines. This achievement cannot be separated from the support from and close cooperation with the Socialist Republic of Vietnam, a neighboring country with close cooperation in all sectors, especially politics and economics.

This launch indeed does not imply the start of Cambodia National Airlines. Cambodia started its National Airlines in 1956, and later on, due to the war and lack of human resources, the national airlines ceased its operation. Thus, we can see that Cambodia National Airlines has its history of more than half decade, by having gone through both difficult and prosperous period. In particular, Royale Air Cambodge was launched in 1956, with 60% stake owned by the Royal Government of Cambodia and 30% stake owned by Air France. This company’s operation was notably successful, unfortunately, due to some domestic crisis and political instability; it ceased its operation after the Khmer Rouge took power in 1975.

Later on, after 1979, the People’s Republic of Kampuchea established the National Airline Company called “Cambodia Airlines” which was 100% owned by the state. The operation relied on aircrafts and utilities produced in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and were not fully commercial as the company was mandated to both operate on commercial basis and serve social needs. In 1995, we moved from fully state-owed company by forming a joint venture with a Malaysian company and the operation of that company was purely commercial. In spite of pure commercial operation and support from the experienced Malaysia party, the company’s operation was not successful and the blame goes to unstable market and 9/11 terrorist attack. Later on, the company stopped its operation.

Civil Aviation sector is a fast growing industry in domestic, regional and global market. Air transport brings about enormous benefits to the society and human beings; it also supports economic development, trade and tourism. Air transport has made the world become a global village, making us more convenient in commuting, transporting and communicating with each other.

With growing demand of flight services, many airlines have been established. In particular, we observe that many Asian national airlines have improved their operation to compete with already matured Western airlines. In particular, Cambodia enjoys competitive advantage and enormous tourism potentials that were left by its previous generations in both abstract and non-abstract achievements such as cultural, artistic and historical heritage as well as thousand of stone temples through out the country including the stone carving arts and other live artistic achievements, which attract the visitors, archeologists and historian, who are the main objectives of the world tourism.

Based on the potential of the current tourism sector and the legacy we have inherited, I realize that Cambodia National Airline Company will further fill in the gap and create a full supporting mechanism for the national economic infrastructure. Through this mean, the Company will actively contribute to the improvement in the areas of transportation, trade and tourism as well as directly contributing to the job creation, which is the basis for socio-economic development in Cambodia.

In fact, beside the effort to make its business a success with direct interest to the national socio-economic situation, the National Airline Company has another significant role as an effective mean in disseminating Khmer culture, civilization and tradition to be further known by the outside world. In this sense, we could see that tourism will become an effective bridge in providing transportation services to visitors coming from abroad to visit our Cambodia: “Kingdom of Wonder”. This is directly contributing to the promotion of tourism in Cambodia and continuity of job creation, increase of income and enhancement of the living standard of the people.

The aspect mentioned here, could be assumed that the progress of Cambodia Airline Sector will provide mean for highlighting legacy, which is the long lasting resources to show the visitors from different corners of the world and this mechanism will continue spreading to the progress of other sectors. In this spirit, the Royal Government has tried its effort and paid greater attention to facilitate in all kinds in order to make sure various sectors, especially tourism, which is the national core, is in progress. In actuality, the Royal Government has so far invested in developing important infrastructures in order to support tourism sector, including the setting out of crucial policies such as granting visa on spot, setting up electronic visa system and the exemption of visa for a number of countries, which are ASEAN member states.

Moreover, recently in the ASEAN framework, the ASEAN member states have agreed to establish a framework of open sky on air transportation by making the flights more extensive, and Cambodia is also one of the signatories in the multilateral liberal agreement. This policy will surely contribute to the development of Cambodia tourism from year to year, in which tourism sector today shares 12% of the gross domestic products.

During the first stage of the Company operation, the Royal Government has decided to provide support and incentives to make sure our National Airline Company can be operated with full confidence, strong position and be competitive with other airline companies in the region. This supporting policy is aimed at making sure the National Airline Company, “Cambodia Angkor Air”, can be operated with success as well as ensuring revenues for the national budget. Along with this, I would also like to support the business plan of this new National Airline Company, which is going to provide flying services from Siem Reap - Phnom Penh - Sihanoukville and the international flight route from Siem Reap – Bangkok. The initial flight through this route is to facilitate the transportation of visitors from Sihanouk province, who have traveled into Cambodia through big tourism ships, to have opportunity to visit Angkor temples, and add more flights from Siem Reap - Bangkok, which is responding to the policy and strategy of the Royal Government in the face of Global Economic Crisis in order to revive tourism sector in Cambodia, especially in Siem Reap province, who receive impact from this crisis. In the near future, the flights might be connected to other regions of Vietnam, Luong Prabang city of Lao PDR and other cities of tourism in the region and other countries as many as possible. The connection of coastal areas to the Tourism City of Angkor in Siem Reap is the significant strategy in expanding the visiting ability of visitors more than before and to make sure that those visitors are able to visit Angkor and coastal areas within a tour package and will also facilitate visitors to see many places and stay longer.

According to the experiences so far, we have realized that in order to build and lead an airline company to be more successful and sustainable, it is required for the leadership of the company to be wise, professional and highly experienced, be able to conform themselves to the market change, especially to be honest with high responsibility and commitment, teamwork and mutual understanding by relying on the internal principles and regulations approved by the governing board.

I believe that all leaders and governing board members of the National Airline Company, “Cambodia Angkor Air”, will try your utmost to overcome every obstacles and learn from the past experiences in order to bring this company a success and contribute to the promotion of Cambodia Competitiveness ability in the new context of open sky policy in the region through the knowledge transfer, experiences and other necessary technologies, including all levels of training either in management and technical level to Cambodian employees aiming to enhance the delivery of services and efficiency.

At the end, with the official launch of the National Airline Company, “Cambodia Angkor Air”, today I would like to wish Excellency Truong Vinh Trong, Deputy Prime Minister of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and Colleagues and Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, Distinguished National and International Guests and all Compatriots, who are present here today the four gems of Buddhist blessings: Longevity, Nobility, Health and Strength.

May I wish the National Airline Company, “Cambodia Angkor Air, a sustainable success and progress.