H.E. Mr PHOL Norith
Under Secretary of State
Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts
Cambodia

Excellency, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen,

Good morning. It is my pleasure to be here today. On behalf of the Cambodian delegation, I express my sincere gratitude to the organiser that invited me to join you at this meeting. Please allow me to present to you briefly about the cultural development in Cambodia. The topic is the programmes of Cambodian culture in international places.

The Ministry of Culture and Fine Arts is one of the 28 governmental ministries in Cambodia. Currently, the Minister is Excellency Dr Phoeurng SACKONA. We have a vision, a goal, strategies and action plans—Our vision is to conserve and develop national culture in order to foster social and economic development. Our goal is to ensure sustainability and progress of the national culture which strengthens national identity and prestige; we also aim to contribute to socio-economic development. To be successful in this goal, we have some strategies in preservation, protection and management of cultural heritage, such as utilising  our cultural potential for economic development, evaluating and promoting our cultural industry, providing support for creating market in the field of culture, education and training, having cultural exchanges, and co-operating with other institutions and partners. We also have some action plans so as to establish a mechanism and legal framework to provide financial support, promote human resource development, and have a policy for project implementation, which is a bilateral agreement. Currently, we have more than 100 bilateral agreements, executive programmes and Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs).

We have held some cultural activities this year. The first example is the Asian Cultural Council held in Angkor, Siem Reap on 15–16 January 2019, which was part of the International Conference of the Asian Political Parties. The second one is the Asian Cultural Festival, which was part of the Asia Pacific Summit held in Phnom Penh on 19–20 November 2019.

We will also have summit events in 2020. The first one is the Meeting of the ASEAN Ministers Responsible for Culture and Arts and the ASEAN+3 Festival in Siem Reap in October. The next one is the 13th Asia-Europe Meeting Cultural Festival in Phnom Penh in November which we estimate that around 32 countries will join. This event will be hosted by the Ministry of Culture and Fine Art of Cambodia in partnership with the European Union and the Asia-Europe Foundation. Its title is “Asia Europe Together, and Europe Asia Together”. Its theme is enhancing the ASEAN-Europe relationship through the arts and culture. Three art forms will be presented at that time—the first one is performing arts, including contemporary and classical performances and music; the second one is exhibition, including visual art, digital art, multimedia and photography; and the third one is film, including theatre and short documentaries. Those are the tentative programmes we have planned to organise for five days from 13 to 17 November. Note that the closing of this event is at the same time of that of the ASEAN Summit.

In conclusion, we expect preservation and development of our culture and fine art locally, people-to-people connectivity regionally, and exchange of culture internationally which promotes local and international collaboration.

Thank you.