"Belt and Road" initiative will bring closer China-Cambodia cooperation: HKSAR official

China-proposed "Belt and Road" initiative would build closer ties and cooperation between China and Cambodia, Eric Ma, Secretary for Development in China's Hong Kong Special Administrative Region (HKSAR) government said on Monday.

"Under the "Belt and Road" initiative, we foresee closer co-operation between Cambodia and China," he said during a networking luncheon in Phnom Penh, which was attended by about 100 HKSAR officials and representatives and Cambodian business executives.

The Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road initiative, known as "Belt and Road" initiative, was proposed by China in 2013 with the aim of building a trade and infrastructure network connecting Asia with Europe and Africa along the ancient trade routes.

Ma said that HKSAR was playing a role as "super-connector" between the Mainland of China and other countries under the "Belt and Road" initiative.

He said under the initiative, relations and cooperation between China and Cambodia in trade, investment, and culture would be further strengthened.

China is one of Cambodia's biggest trading partners with bilateral trade volume valued at 4.4 billion U.S. dollars in 2015. On the investment side, China is the largest investor here with a cumulative investment of over 14 billion U.S. dollars from 1994 to 2016, according to Cambodian government figures.

He said that HKSAR could certainly facilitate further exchanges between Cambodia's Khmer culture and China's Confucian culture under the initiative.

Ma is leading a HKSAR business delegation to visit Cambodia to foster a closer relationship between HKSAR and Cambodia.

Cambodia is the first leg of his two-nation tour, which will also bring him to Indonesia. Enditem