Speech Samdech Akka Moha Sena Padei Techo Hun Sen at the Official Launching of the Movement of Clean City Contest
Peace Conference Hall
February 27th, 2012
Excellencies, Ladies and Gentlemen, and National and International Distinguished Guests!
Today, I am pleased to attend the official launching of the “Movement of Clean City Contest”,
which is one of the important events in the Kingdom. This contest will
significantly contribute to the required development of tourism sector.
In this sense, on behalf of the government and the clean city evaluation
committee, I would like to give my full support to and further
encourage the management and all officials of the Ministry of Tourism to
successfully carry on your duties and accomplish new achievements in
order to contribute to economic growth and socio economics development.
To
proceed with the movement, we have to take into account the concept of
development and conservation, which are fundamental principle for
sustainable development of the tourism sector. We also need to
incorporate five key concepts in this movement: (1) conserve and improve
cultural and natural resource, where is critical for our tourism
sector; (2) promote equity among relevant beneficiary, increase economic
benefit, reduce adverse effects of tourism sector on the economy,
culture and environment; (3) respect the value of each community; (4)
share good experiences with each region to enhance tourists’
satisfaction and promote word-of-mouth information and revisit trip; and
(5) maintain the quality of heritage and all resources in order to
support long term productivity and sustainability for the next
generation.
Cambodia
has now enjoyed fully peace, political stability, social order and
development of all sectors. We have sustained the recovery of our
economy in the form of V-shape after suffered from the pressure of the
global economic recession. Despite that,
growth for 2011 registered at around 7%. The Gross Domestic Product
increased to USD 13,000 million and GDP per capita increased to USD 909
dollar. Although massive flood severely damaged the agriculture sector,
timely and effective policy intervention of the government maintained
growth at 3.3% in 2011, resulting 2012 rice surplus of 4 million tons
equivalent to milled rice of 2.58 million tons.
Tourism
sector also registered remarkable growth, with an increase of tourists’
arrival into the country by 15%, equivalent to 2,881,862 persons in
2011. Despite this, the World and Cambodia tourism sector is facing
challenges, which are spillover effects of remaining uncertainty of
global economy and one following the other natural disasters such as
melting ice in Pole area, Tsunami, flood, and wind storm due to adverse
impact of climate change. In response to these phenomena, environmental
protection would partially contribute to mitigate global warming and air
pollution caused by irresponsible human activities.
The
World has paid great attention to city management and conservation
based on sustainable principles because we are aware that population has
crowded in towns and cities, where are forecasted that two third of
total population will reside in the cities and area surrounded the
cities by 2050 and then they need to consume energy of 60% and release
CO2 of 80% in the world. Therefore, we have to take into high
consideration of sound management in order to realize the concept of
“More with Less”. The world also has to pay great attention to Eco-City
for the purpose of highly effective use of natural resource. In this
regard, the contest movement on Clean City Contest is organized in order
to enhance responsible spirit among relevant partners, including public
organizations, tourism operation agencies, tourists and our compatriots
to effectively address the challenges. This means that we have to
develop the Kingdom of Cambodia to become a beautiful country which is
more attractive and environmentally protective as well as a country that
help reduce the source of global warming.
To
make this contest highly effective the RGC has decided to established
the National Committee for Clean City Evaluation, with the role and
responsibility to monitor, implement, advice and consult with
cities/khans with the aim to promote and sustain the their charming,
hygiene, and environment and to transform those urban areas into a warm
living areas with socio-economic development base on a common standard
in accordance with the sustainable and responsible development principles. In order to realize these principles we have adopted the implementation of such “Clean City Contest” being organized today.
While
we enhance the competitiveness of Cambodia’s tourism sector, “Clean
City Contest” will contribute to accelerate the development of the
government’s core strategy, which has been laid down in the updated
national strategic development strategy 2009 – 2013, to further improve
socio-economic development. The Rectangular strategies have laid down
four key strategies:
First,
Promoting the development of all form of infrastructures such as roads,
bridges, clean water system, schools, and hospital etc. In this regard,
the payment of DBST or concrete at least 25% is put as a standard
indicator to the cities applied for the contest, providing support to
the Government policy as mentioned that road system is key driver of
economic growth and economic vein for connecting all parts of the nation
to feed and support Cambodia economy, aiming at integrating internally,
regionally and globally;
Second,
Strengthening social security and safety by maintaining stability and
social order and preventing drug trafficking, prostitution, human
trafficking, in particular women and children, which additional policy
intervention for “safe village-commune” of the government;
Third,
Strengthening quality of public service and tourism sector such as the
enhancement of public health service and healthy food at restaurants,
food stores, and market as well as public place. Tourism service and
increasing tourism educational institution, parks and referral hospitals
to meet the need of the people, aimed at improving public well fare, in
particular children to become stronger in physical body, spirit and
knowledge as well as improve the quality of tourism to provide warmness,
trust and pleasure to tourists;
Forth,
Participating in green economic development by shaping direction and
forming other action plans of sub-national administration at the level
of town/khan consistent with green development approach and principle of
sustainable and responsible development;
Fifth,
Taking part in integrating Cambodia into the regional and the world
through the search for preventive and adaptive measures for the problems
of climate change. Truly, the standard of the “clean city” is a new
legal framework for Cambodia’; and this standard has been unanimously
accepted ASEAN and used as a model for a basis in the preparation of the
standard for ASEAN Clean Tourist City.
In
this spirit, I firmly believe the clean city contest held once every
three-year will become a good opportunity for Cambodia in making her
city to become a green tourist destination with high quality and be part
of the development of Green Economy in Cambodia for the prevention of
climate change, in particular contribute to achieving the Millennium
Development Goals.
Along
with this, I am of the view that in order for this movement to be
active, dynamic and vigorous we need ensure that the winning-city will
be appropriately rewarded in return. In this regard, the winning-city of
the clean city contest movement will be rewarded as follows (1)
receiving a certificate as an encouragement for the maintenance and
promotion of city’s environmental standard and beauty, which is an honor
for the winning-city (2) promoting the reputation and superiority of
the city to show to tourists and stakeholders, in particular investors,
national and international organizations. All these praiseworthy results
will contribute to promoting better livelihoods of people with good and
clean social environment in the cities and rural areas. This will
further strengthen the attraction of tourism sector because tourism
sector not only depends on tourism products but also on the
sustainability and quality of the environment and public services as
well.
In
general, the clean city contest is an is a key mechanism for responding
to the climate change problem, in short, it effectively contributes to
building a “Green Economy” in Cambodia while tourism sector is regarded as a priority sector playing a role as “Green Gold“
that contributes to economic growth and the distribution of the growth
with equity through creating and increasing jobs, generating direct and
indirect incomes for the people, promoting on-site export, contributing
to reducing the poverty and mitigating the source of the global
warming.
Right
now, in order to make the clean city contest movement become an
effective catalyst contributing to promoting cities (both old ones and
new ones) to be “Clean Cities” of “Cambodia: the Kingdom of Wonder”,
winning-cities must be cities that have good environment and
sanitation, and good order together with sufficient supporting
infrastructure providing warmth and good places for people living in the
cities and providing good and attractive sightseeing for tourists.
Taking
this great opportunity, in order to be part of the clean city contest
movement, I would like to impose some key recommendations that
strengthen the management and the development of city with
sustainability, effectiveness and responsible. These include as follows:
1st.
Because clean city is a key component in contributing to the promotion
of good governance, the National Committee for Clean City Assessment
need to prepare a plan for national policy and prepare a clean city in
order to use as a basis for the management and development of clean
city by including all sectors such as urban planning, environment,
tourism, security, safety, and public order based on close cooperation
among stakeholders both at national and local levels, national and
international organizations as well as people for the management and
development of cities with sustainability, in short we need to adhere to
the concept of “Clean City for Us All, We All Are for Clean City.”
2nd.
The Ministry of Land Management, Urban Planning and Constructions and
sub-national administrations need to cooperate with relevant ministries,
institutions, and authorities to prepare or to finish the study on the Master Plan for Land Management, and Urban Land Management Planning and Development
as soon as possible in order to use as a basis for ensuring the
effectiveness, sustainability, balance and harmony in developing and
conserving cities.
3rd.
The sub-national administrations need to cooperate with relevant
ministries and institutions to think about how to make air quality in
the cities better through considering the constructions of walking
paths, bicycle lanes, exercising fields for people, and transport means
that are environmentally friendly, in particular the use of public buses
in order to reduce the consumption of petroleum or the use electric
public buses as such with the aim to reduce the pollution in the air
that can harm the health and livelihood of the people and the visits of
the tourists in cities. In parallel, we need to think about how to
promote the design and decoration of public transports so that they are
consistent with the identity of the cities and tourism attractions.
4th.
Hard and soft wastes remains big problems that sub-national
administrations need to pay great attention on through increasing the
dissemination of knowledge to people on how to separate trashes into
different types and throwing them into different bins by sorting them
into papers, plastics, bottles and other chemical residues, and
encouraging the collection of trashes with technical standard as well as
thinking about the storage capacity and processing as well. Along with
this, there is a need to promote a “Clean city is a city that has no flying trashed plastic bags in the air” campaign,
and this objective needs to be achieved by 2015 in all cities of the
Kingdom of Cambodia. Besides, there needs to be an encouragement on the
use of eco-bags in markets and business centers. In addition, there is a
need to improve the cleanliness, the look and hygiene of public
toilets.
5th.
There is a need to increase an adequate size of green zone in each city
by promoting tree-planting campaigns in the city under the slogan of “Tree-Planting Starting from You “or “One Tourist, One Tree-Planting”.
In this regard, the Ministry of Tourism, the National Committee of
Clean City Assessment and sub-national administrations in cooperation
with the relevant ministries, institutions, private sector, national and
international organizations need to prepare mechanisms and relevant
legal frameworks to use as a basis supporting these campaigns to go
smoothly, successfully with continuity, in particular focus on creating Green Zone meeting the clean city standard.
6th.
There is a need to focus on strengthening and expanding tourism
endowment such as market business center, tourism information center,
and entertainment center for tourists etc. The Ministry of Tourism and
sub-national administrations need to cooperate with relevant ministries
and institutions in the preparation of the plan for tourism development
in each city in order to use as a compass for promoting sustainable
tourism development and increasing tourism attractions in your cities so
that it is in line current trends such as creating night markets and
tourist walking areas... etc.
7th.
At the same time, security and safety of tourists and people are a
necessity that need to be focused upon, in short we all need to continue
effective implementations of “Safe Village-Commune”
Policy of the Royal Government. For that, we also need to pay great
attention on the indicators on the rate of traffic accidents. In order
enhance our dignity and safety, law implementing and responsible
authorities in the cities need to ensure the effectiveness of crime
preventions and crackdowns, and continue the efforts in the expansion
and quick delivery of your services, standing by 24 hours/ a day in
order to receive requests from tourists such as services on security and
emergency and so on.
8th.
Sub-national administrations need to cooperate with the Ministry of
Tourism, the Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts, and relevant ministries
and institutions in the preparation of your city’s identity with
distinguished features based on unique characteristics of your areas
such as culture, history, and architecture and so on, in the cause of
tourism development for each city.
9th.
Encourage the sub-national administrations to continue implementing
counterpart projects (50% plus 50%) in the construction of roads in the
city (asphalt or concrete) which is a component of the clean city in
order to facilitate the living and business of the people and tourists.
10th.
For new cities such as Krong Bavet, Krong Poi Pet, Krong Suong, Khan
Posenchey and other satellite cities which generally are not so
populated, and the infrastructure is not well developed, by allocating
20% of total land for green city development at the first stage is
appropriate, because new cities have better opportunity in preparing
their land use plan than old cities, because new cities have abundant
unused land. However, the construction of infrastructure must be
consistent with the architecture of other buildings to ensure the beauty
of cities.
11th.
At the same time, cities at coastal areas must be developed into
attractive tourism destination in order to live up to its name as “Cambodia’s Bay: The Rising Star of the Southwest”.
In this sense, governors of provinces and cities at coastal areas, The
National Committee for Management and Development of Coastal Areas,
relevant ministries-institutions and citizens must carry out the
government’s decree on the development of Cambodia coastal
areas in order to ensure that our bay is beautiful, and connected to
good infrastructure such as roads, bridges, and other infrastructures
along the bay, which make those cities stand out and live up to their
names as member cities of The Most Beautiful Bay in the World club.
12th.
Each city must increase advertisement about tourism and about their
cities by strengthening and expanding the cooperation with
provinces/cities of other countries all over the world, by advertising
through any means about Cambodian tourism “Cambodia: The Kingdom of Wonders”,
about their cities as clean cities, clean resorts with good services
for hosting cultural, art, natural, historical and traditional events,
and so on. Moreover, each city must promote local tourism as well in
order to attract visitors from abroad.
Once again, I still strongly believe that Clean City Contest Movement will promote “Good Governance”
and reflect the transparency and efficiency of decentralization and
de-concentration effort of the sub-national government and I certainly
hope that all cities will become tourism destinations that provide
warmness and welfare to the people in order to enable Cambodia at the
present and in the future to turn into attractive Green Tourism
Destinations and build Cambodia’s prestige on the international arena.
The Ministry of Tourism and relevant institutions must continue to more
actively, vibrantly, and regularly promote the Clean City Contest
Movement.
Before
ending, I would like to appeal to all people, ministries-agencies, all
levels of local authority, especially the sub-national administration,
private sector, development partners, all stakeholders to support and
promote Clean City Movement actively and widely for the cause of
promoting the development of Green Economy in
Cambodia and promoting a harmonious living atmosphere and socio-economic
activities in the cities of the Royal Kingdom of Cambodia.
All
candidate cities must fill in the contest forms and strictly follow the
plan, programs, and schedule as set by the National Evaluation
Committee for Clean City in order to ensure that this contest is being
conducted carefully, responsibly and efficiently.
At the end, along with official launching of the Movement of Clean City Contest, I would like to wish Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen with the 4 Gems of Buddhist Blessings: Longevity, Nobility, Health and Strength.
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