On 1st November 2017, the closing ceremony of the 2nd National Forum on “Chinese Market and China-Ready for Cambodia Tourism” was held in Phnom Penh. H.E. Dr. THONG Khon, Minister of Ministry of Tourism of Cambodia (MoT), and H.E. Mr. Xiong Bo, Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China to Cambodia, attended the closing ceremony and delivered remarks. H.E. Mr. Neb Samouth, Director-General of Tourism Industry of MoT made a concluding report on the results of the forum. H.E. Mme. Yang Xiuping, Secretary-General of ASEAN-China Centre (ACC), was invited to attend the event.

Ambassador Xiong Bo said in his remarks that Cambodia has a long history, cultural diversity and rich tourism resources. Tourism has obvious advantages and great potentials for development, and has become an important pillar industry of the national economy. Tourism plays an important part of Sino-Cambodian economic and cultural cooperation, and has become an important starting point in promoting the building of “the Belt and Road” and the people-to-people bond. Next year will be the 60th anniversary of the diplomatic relations between China and Cambodia.China is willing to seize the opportunity to focus on strengthening the role of tourism cooperation in promoting cultural exchanges, especially promoting friendly feelings among the people. In this direction, the traditional friendship between China and Cambodia will continue to be inherited and developed into the new era.

H.E. Dr. THONG Khon highly appreciated the proactive role of the People’s Republic of China in Cambodia and ACC in promoting tourism cooperation between China and Cambodia and strong support from the two parts to the forum. He said that the forum enhanced the understanding of Chinese outbound tourism market for Cambodian tourism practitioners, and has great significance for Cambodia to better implement China-Ready Strategy and welcome approximately 2,000,000 Chinese tourists in 2020. Cambodian government is committed to pushing forward China-Ready Strategy steadily under the framework of the Belt and Road Initiative, and will further intensify innovation, effectively improve service standards and quality to promote the development of Cambodia tourism and Sino-Cambodian tourism cooperation.