A senior World Bank official who had paid a visit to Cambodia early this week said that the world is now looking into agriculture which is one of the important sectors in the country, officials at Ministry of Economy and Finance said Friday.

During a meeting early this week, Jim Hagan, executive director at the World Bank, representing a constituency of 13 countries told Keat Chhon, minister of economy and finance that World Bank's new policy is to focus on agriculture, citing it as a priority demand by the Royal Government of Cambodia, according to the officials.

The officials said, in response, Keat Chhon welcomed World Bank's interest in agriculture by saying that development in agriculture will help reduce the heavy reliance on external factors such as the reliance on investors for garment sectors or foreign tourists.

Garment and tourism have been, for many years, the main earning revenues for Cambodia.

After forming a new government following the 2003 general election, Prime Minister Hun Sen set in his rectangular policy that agriculture is one of the priorities that his government is committed to achieve it.

Some 80 percent of Cambodia's nearly 14 million populations are farmers.

Last year, Cambodia produced 7.15 million tons of rice from a total farming land of 2.25 million hectares.

(Xinhua News Agency August 29, 2009)