Cambodia-US Trade Tops $9.1B in 2021

Cambodia-US Trade Tops $9.1B in 2021

Cambodia’s exports to the US remains strong despite the export of some products under the GSP scheme is made with tariff payment, says Pen Sovicheat, spokesman at the Ministry of Commerce

The bilateral trade between Cambodia and the US amounted to $9,159 million in value in 2021, a 15.8 percent increase compared to the same period last year, according to a report the US Census Bureau issued on Wednesday.

Cambodia exported $8,745 million worth of goods to the world’s biggest economic nation last year, a year-on-year increase of 33.2 percent.

The trade amount makes the US Cambodia’s biggest market.

The Kingdom’s imports from the US rose by 20.2 percent to $413.7 million in value, read the report.

This resulted in Cambodia’s trade surplus with the US at $8,331.6 million, a 34 percent increase compared to last year.

In November alone, Cambodia’s exports to the US amounted to $727.1 million, a 40 percent decrease compared to December.

Cambodia’s exports to the US were mostly garments and included goods such as footwear, bicycles and furniture. They are exported under the US Generalised System of Preference.

The Kingdom imports automobiles, machinery, electrical appliances and electronics.

Lim Heng, Vice-President of the Cambodia Chamber of Commerce, said yesterday that the increase of the Kingdom’s exports to the US is driven by the trade preference scheme offered by the US government to Cambodia.

“Under the trade preference schemes such as GSP, Cambodia attracts more foreign companies and factories from abroad, particularly from China, where investors feel effects from the US-China trade war, and exports from Cambodia to the US remain increasing,” Heng said.

Pen Sovicheat, spokesman at the Ministry of Commerce, told Khmer Times in January that the US remained the biggest market for Cambodia’s export products in 2021 despite the Covid-19 pandemic due to the main products exported are cloth and footwear products, and travel and bag products benefiting from the GSP and contribute a big share of the amount of exports.

“Cambodia’s exports to the US remain strong despite the fact that export of some products under the GSP scheme is made with tariff payment,” Sovicheat said.

Cambodia’s travel and bag products only receive GSP status in the US market and other products such as clothes and footwear are exported to the US under the Most-Favoured Nation status, which allows for discounts on imports.

For 11 months of 2021, Cambodia’s total exports (excluding gold) achieved a total amount of $15.6 billion, an increase of 22.6 percent compared to the same period last year, according to the Socio-Economic Trends report of the Ministry of Economy and Finance.

The growth is driven by the increase of garments, bicycles and other export goods including furniture, rubber, fur skins, solar, electronics and electronic parts, bananas, wires and cables, sugar, other agricultural products, cassava, mango and so on. Khmer Times