Initiative Encourages Private Rural Investment

Representatives from more than 90 Cambodian businesses gathered yesterday at the Council of Ministers building in Phnom Penh to hear about a new initiative that aims to encourage private sector investment in agriculture.

The $55.6 million project is an extension of the Asian Development Bank’s (ADB) Tonle Sap Poverty Reduction Project, which seeks to induce technology and other specialist companies to help develop small-scale agribusiness in Banteay Meanchey, Siem Reap, Kompong Thom and Kompong Cham provinces. …

As the private sector is profit-driven, a $3 million fund is intended as an incentive for companies to research and develop the best ways of adapting information communication technologies, or ICTs, to benefit the rural poor. The fund will supply investors with up to $750,000 per project.

The goal is to bring the government, development agencies and the private sector together to solve the remaining barriers to growth without waiting on large infrastructural projects taking shape, such as rural electricity shortages being solved by a national grid. …

http://www.cambodiadaily.com/business/initiative-encourages-private-rural-investment-37899/