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Under the develoPPP programme, the German government has approved two projects between Cambodian stakeholders and German companies. Facilitated and supported by the Business & Cooperation Desk at the ADW, the projects are launching in the next months.

Objective of the first project is to demonstrate how traffic safety and traffic fluidity and as a result air quality can be significantly improved in Cambodia by encouraging the implementation of intelligent traffic management solutions at large-scale, and in the long-term. 

The second project will focus on strengthening the processing capacities of agricultural niches and by-products in Cambodia, areas which are receiving increasing attention from the Royal Government and export agencies.

The develoPPP.de programme works with the private sector and offers financial and technical support for companies that want to implement sustainable pilot projects in developing and emerging-market countries. Areas are for example improving product and service quality, social and environmental standards, qualifying suppliers, know-how and technology transfer. The programme has been set up by the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) more than 20 years ago to increase the involvement of the private sector in areas where business opportunities and development policy initiatives overlap. Participating/selected companies are responsible for covering at least half of the overall costs for a project.

Are you interested in the develoPPP-Programme? Please contact our Business & Cooperation Desk at the ADW via globalbusinessnetwork[at]adw-cambdia[dot]org

BEE Incorporations is a multi-national consultancy company headquartered in Asia, delivering sustainability solutions for green and healthy buildings worldwide. The company provides building certification and corporate wellness consulting, monitoring & testing, and green materials solutions for projects across all sectors and scales. BEE delivered over 500 certified Green Building projects in 30 countries.

The BEE Incorporation team in Cambodia will execute the work necessary to carry out projects under the leading green building and health & wellness certification programs including LEED, BEAM, China 3-Star, LBC, RESET, WELL, EDGE, and ARC Certifications - from project application, credit documentation, and energy calculations to final submission.

BEE also provides intelligent building management solutions that will help to save energy cost and ensure healthy indoor air quality. The company is experienced in energy auditing in accordance with ASHRAE standard and supports its clients in implementing energy saving measures.

Dr. Susanne Bodach is the Managing Director of BEE Incorporation in Cambodia. She is a German expert on energy efficiency and green buildings and has been working in the field of sustainability for over 15 years. Her diverse project experience ranges from net-zero design, green building certification, energy modelling, CSR, sustainability strategies and planning. Dr. Bodach has broad experience in the sustainable construction industry in Cambodia and has been an expert for various conferences on sustainable building in Cambodia.

On the matchmaking platform leverist.de, companies can discover business opportunities in developing and emerging countries around the world. Experts with experience in development cooperation who are on location advise them on possible partnerships with the German development sector. More than 200 business opportunities in 40 partner countries are already online since the platform launched in 2019, and more than 500 companies are registered on the platform. Currently, four investment opportunities in the agricultural and packaging sectors are listed for Cambodia.

leverist.de creates a digital network that combines the innovative power of companies with expertise in local development cooperation. The aim is to provide companies with transparent and direct access to development cooperation, opening business opportunities for companies. As a result, this cooperation contributes to sustainable development driven by innovative busienss..

leverist.de is a digital initiative of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) GmbH on behalf of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ)

On February 27th, the German Business Group Cambodia (ADW), the German Embassy, the Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation (KAS) and the GIZ Global Business Network (GBN) Programme welcomed H.E. Soa Sopheap to a networking lunch with German institutions and companies to discuss opportunities in waste management in Cambodia. While Germany today has achieved considerable progress in developing modern solutions to sort, treat and recycle waste, the country’s experience with a shortage of landfill capacity during the 1980s, coupled with the growing awareness that Germans needed to curb the use of natural resources and energy, prompted the development of a modern waste management system.

Ever since, the “circular economy” has remained a top priority for environmental policy makers in Germany: since the early 1990s, work has been ongoing to transform waste management into a resource management system. Waste management in Germany has evolved into a large and influential economic sector, with more than 270,000 employees working for 11,000 companies, and an annual turnover of around 70 billion euros. More than 15,500 waste management facilities currently help Germany conserve resources through recycling and other recovery operations.

During the lunch, H.E. Soa Sopheap, state secretary at the Ministry of Environment, provided an overview on the different efforts undertaken by the Cambodian government to modernise the waste management sector in the country. These efforts include: legislative reforms affecting waste collection, sorting, and treatment, the evaluation of potential waste-to-energy options for Cambodia, and awareness-raising initiatives at various political and administrative levels.  

Following H.E. Sopheap’s account, representatives from Germany’s private sector, development and research institutions presented German services and technologies that have the potential to support developing a waste management system in Cambodia, some of which have already been implemented successfully in neighboring countries.  The group of representatives offered  to support the Cambodian government in the implementation of its “3Rs”  Principle (Reduce, Reuse and Recycle), by providing experiences gained in Asian waste systems, sharing technological know-how, and providing modern and reliable equipment for virtually all areas and stages of waste disposal: collection, sorting, treatment and disposal (through biological, physical or thermal methods), the reduction of landfills and the establishment of a formal recycling structure, emission protection, and landfill monitoring and aftercare.

According to the Bloomberg Innovation Index 2020, Germany is the most innovative nation of the world. After six years on top position, South Korea was ranked second followed by Singapore, Switzerland and Sweden. Germany scored three top-five rankings in value-added manufacturing, high-tech density, and patent activity. Altogether, the index in its eighth year, encompasses dozens of criteria that contribute to seven indicators.

Rhenus Cambodia recently participated in river cleaning efforts spearheaded by the Belgium organization River Clean Up. The mission of this group is to host cleanups along rivers, create awareness and bring change to something which Rhenus can relate to, having been named after a river itself.

Completed in the rivers of Mekong, the local Rhenus team and other volunteers gathered waste like plastic bags, bottles and food wrappers along the riverbank. Together, the activists collected 430 kgs of plastic trash in less than an hour. “Protect the planet, don’t use single use plastic, don’t litter”, Frank Kleinteich, Rhenus Country Director Cambodia, wrote on Facebook. Altogether, Rhenus enabled ten cleanups with over 6,000 people during Water Festival in Phnom Penh in November. All in all, this collective initiative was able to clean several tons of trash off of the rivers and banks to be recycled or disposed of properly.

On the occasion of the visit of Heinrich Böll Foundation’s President Ms. Barbara Unmüßig to Cambodia in December, the foundation launched the Plastic Atlas booklet in English and Khmer language at Meta House Phnom Penh. The Plastic Atlas contains more than 49 detailed infographics covering a broad range of topics regarding the plastic pollution crisis looking along the entire value chain of plastic. The event was also attended by H.E. Neth Pheaktra, Secretary of State and Spokesperson of the Ministry of Environment, who delivered a speech on plastic pollution in Cambodia.

In September 2018, EuroCham Cambodia and ADW signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with GIZ to formalise cooperation in establishing a Business & Cooperation Desk of the Global Business Network Programme (GBN) within the German chapter of EuroCham. 

A lack of knowledge about the Cambodian economy and its huge potential for investors, traders and producers can no longer be an excuse for German companies. With the new directory in German language published by ADW, GIZ and GTAI, readers get a brief overview about general political and economic conditions as well as valuable insights from several business sectors. But this is by far not the only helpful publication worth considering before starting business operations in Cambodia.

Two agreements worth more than €67 million, about $70 million, were reached by Minister of Economy and Finance Aun Pornmoniroth and German ambassador Christian Berger on 28 November. These are the first loans the Federal Republic provides to the Kingdom. According to a press statement, the loans are directed towards improving the government’s four priority sectors – human resources, road infrastructure, energy and water.