Cambodian entrepreneurs and producers are expecting to increase their exports of potential agricultural and food processing products to the US market, said Innovations and Development Investors Association (IDI) sources.

A group of 90 entrepreneurs, business owners and investors who have just wrapped a week-long visit to the US in Nov. 2023, exploring the opportunity of seeking partners, learning legal compliance and procedures on exports, and understanding opportunities and challenges in exporting products from Cambodia to the US.

The visit was organised by Innovations and Development Investors Association (IDI), under cooperation with Cambodia Chamber of Commerce in California, AmCham and Khmer Entrepreneur.

The visit was aimed at creating opportunities to meet buyers, increase awareness and experience to small and medium enterprises on principle demand and legal procedures related to export as well as standard of production, sanitary, and food package toward exports to the US market, said IDI Chairman Hor Sereyvath.

Addressing a press conference on November 24，2023 in Phnom Penh, Sereyvath said, “We hope that through a visit in March 2024 and this time we will see potential agricultural and food processing products on the list of product exports to the US.”

Chheang Vann Monin, Executive Director of Khmer Enterprise, said that the program of US visit is designed to help SMEs in seeking partners in the US in export from Cambodia.

“The participation of the Khmer Enterprise aims to support Cambodia’s SMEs to achieve exports through getting connections between domestic business owners and foreign buyers as well as potential investors,” Vann Monin said.

During their stay in the US, the Cambodian delegation displayed products in an exhibition and business forum, visited supermarkets to understand supply chains of finished products, and memorandum of understanding with key businesses and investment firms in the US.

The US market has remained potentially the biggest export destination for Cambodian products and accounts for about 40 percent of Cambodia’s total export.

Cambodia’s exports to the US reached $6.8 billion in the first nine months of 2023, a drop of 2.1 percent from $7 billion for the same period in 2022, a report from the General Department of Customs and Excise of Cambodia showed.

The shipments to the US accounted for 40 percent of the total export volume of $16.9 billion.

Cambodia’s main products exported to the US are apparel, clothing accessories, leather, travel goods, handbags, electrical machinery and equipment, and footwear, while its imports include vehicles, machinery and mechanical appliances, medical instruments and pharmaceutical products.