International donor meeting opens in Cambodia

The seventh international donor meeting, the Consultative Group (CG) meeting, opened in Phnom Penh Monday and money is expected to offer to the Cambodian government for promoting its reforms and poverty reduction.

At the meeting, held almost every year for the last decade, about 30 donor countries and international organizations as well as Cambodian government officials will determine how much aid will be allocated to the country in the upcoming year, which accounts about half of the country's budget.

The two-day meeting between aid donors and Cambodian government will focus on issues of development, growth and poverty reduction, and will press the government to combat corruption and increase government accountability.

The last CG meeting convened on 2002 when the government got up to 635 million US dollars, more than it had asked for.

But the 2003 meeting was canceled because of the political stalemate on the forming of a new government after the national election in July, 2003.

This time, the government plans to ask for about 1.8 billion dollars in development aid for the next three years from 2005 to 2007.

Source: Xinhua