Excellency Dato Seri Abdullah Haji Ahmad Badawi, Prime Minister of Malaysia
Excellecies, Lok Chum Teav,
Distinguished Guests, Ladies and Gentlemen.
On behalf of the Royal Government of Cambodia and on my own, I have a great pleasure to extend my warmest welcome to Your Excellency Dato Seri Abdullah Haji Ahmad Badawi, Prime Minister of Malaysia and all members of the delegation who have paid an official visit to the Kingdom of Cambodia at this time.
The Royal Government and People of Cambodia are very pleased with Your Excellency Prime Minister’s first visit to Cambodia after your nomination as Prime Minister of Malaysia. I believe that this visit will greatly contribute to the strengthening and developing of the bonds of close friendship and fruitful cooperation between the Kingdom of Cambodia and Malaysia as well as the ASEAN family as a whole.
Your Excellency’s visit at this time will further promote our understanding, bilaterally between Cambodia and Malaysia as well as in the framework of our ASEAN family.
Earlier in the afternoon, Your Excellency and I as well as our two delegations discussed and agreed together that there has been a consolidation and expansion of friendship and bilateral cooperation between Cambodia and Malaysia, cooperation in the ASEAN region, and other issues in the atmosphere of heartfelt and excellent understanding as well.
Presently, after achieving nation-wide peace and political stability and the integration into regional and international context, the only war that the Government and Cambodian people are struggling with is poverty reduction and elimination in Cambodia. This is the main priority of the Royal Government of Cambodia.
In this regard, I would like to express my deepest thanks to Malaysia for its assistance for human resources development for the Cambodian officials, for accepting Cambodian workers to work in Malaysia, and for the donation of 106 km of the used rail tracks to connect the missing link of Poipet-Sisophon of the Singapore-Kunming Rail Links. This 106 km donation of the used rail tracks will not only be an invaluable assistance for Cambodia but it will also contribute to realize very soon the construction of Singapore-Kunming Rail Links which is one of our ASEAN projects.
I also wish to thank the Government of Malaysia for encouraging its investors to further invest in great number in Cambodia. All assistance and investment of Malaysia have helped accelerate the socio-economic development of Cambodia to reduce the poverty, which is the main strategy of the Royal Government of Cambodia.
In recent years, the social and economic development, the national infrastructure rehabilitation and the economic growth have been achieved to a satisfactory level. However, we have committed ourselves to make all our efforts to further speed up the socio-economic development in this third term so as to cut down the poverty rate as planned and to move the ASEAN integration forward for the prosperity of Cambodian People as well as the prosperity of the whole South-East Asian Region.
In the near future, there will be a Meeting of the Cambodian- Malaysian Commission on Economic, Scientific and Technical Cooperation, which will be chaired by the Foreign Ministers of the two countries in Malaysia. I hope that this meeting will give our two Governments the possibility to find new initiatives, new means with the aim of further strengthening and developing the bonds of friendship and cooperation between the two countries as well as to be in harmony with the views and stance of our two countries on regional and international situations in the framework of the ASEAN family.
On behalf of the Royal Government and People of Cambodia, may I assure Your Excellency that the Royal Government and People of Cambodia are determined to keep the excellent bonds of friendship between our two countries sustainable and growing ever since.
As a sincere friend of Malaysia, Cambodia is very satisfied with the progress and development in all fields in Malaysia that help the Malaysian people to get a high living standard and happiness. We would like to express our congratulations for the determination of the Government of Malaysia in defining its policy to make Malaysia a developed country by 2020. Cambodia wishes Malaysia to achieve this great goal and believes that under the wise leadership of Your Excellency Prime Minister Dato Seri Abdullah Haji Ahmad Badawi, Malaysia will certainly reach this goal. Furthermore, under the bright and successful leadership of His Excellency former Prime Minister Dato Seri Mahathir Mohamad, Malaysia has already laid down its material, economic and technical foundation in moving forward to become a developed country.
To congratulate the official visit of Your Excellency Prime Minister to the Kingdom of Cambodia, may I propose a toast:
- to the good health and longevity of His Majesty Preah Bat Samdech Preah Norodom Sihanouk, King of Cambodia and Her Majesty the Queen,
- to the good health and longevity of His Majesty Yang di-Pertuan Agong XII, King of Malaysia and Her Majesty the Queen,
- to the good health and success of H.E. Dato Seri Abdullah Haji Ahmad Badawi ,
- to the close bonds of friendship and good cooperation between the Kingdom of Cambodia and Malaysia,
- to the good health of Your Excellencies, Lok Chum Teav, Ladies and Gentlemen here present.
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