Land Titles Needed to Drive Investment in Agriculture
The issue of using land titles to encourage banks to boost their lending to the agriculture sector was raised at the “Empower Your Business: Riding on Cambodia’s Growth” seminar in Phnom Penh on July 21. “Seventy percent of the population is undertaking agriculture as their profession, which suggests there’s a significant scope to develop agriculture. But farmers are discouraged from investing in fertilizer, irrigation systems or capital equipment, given that they are unsure whether they own their land,” said Morten Kvammen, Managing Partner of Cambodian Capital Securities Co. Ltd., at the seminar. “Records of land titles were erased in the late 1970s and have never been clearly reestablished. The land title issue has not been worked out in agriculture, and access to capital remains limited.” ( Sok Sithika, p 17).
