State budget revenue collection reached 16.430 trillion riel ($3.986 billion) in first eight months of this year, or 70 per cent of the full-year target, as fiscal revenue “continues to contribute as high as 93 per cent”, Minister of Economy and Finance Aun Pornmoniroth said in a statement.

The minister revealed these figures at a September 6 meeting on a joint action plan for public financial management reforms, as noted by the statement released in conjunction with the event.

During the same period, the national general public budget expenditure came to 15.271 trillion riel, or 57 per cent of the full-year target, Pornmoniroth noted.

The statement said the implementation of public financial reforms is “evolving into normalcy and recovery” as Covid-19 tapers off, which it claimed reflects the resilience of the economy and public finances, the flexibility of pertinent policies and strategies, and the sustainability of the aforementioned reforms.

It added that in support of these reforms, Cambodia has been developing, modernising and improving the associated IT systems, in addition to preparing key legal documents of “most” of the underlying programmes, the bulk of which it says “continue to make progress as well as achieve strategic results”.

The September 6 meeting evinced that “the budget remains resilient and reliable with the continued optimisation of revenue management, modernisation of revenue administration and tax policy, and strengthening of cost efficiency”, the statement said.

Pornmoniroth called on all ministry units and relevant institutions to stick to the joint action plan for the remainder of the quarter ending September 30 and achieve its goals.

Hong Vanak, director of International Economics at the Royal Academy of Cambodia, told The Post on September 7 that the government’s ongoing reforms and new policies are not only making Cambodia “more prosperous” and leading to “more international recognition”, but also “significantly increasing” state budget collection.

Other key drivers of state budget collection include political stability, effective revenue and macroeconomic management and reductions in “leakages”, the reopening of business affected by Covid-19, growth in foreign investment inflows, and an overall uptick in international trade activities, he said.

“Collecting more revenue better allows the government to release funds to be used for public investment, meet the needs of the people and increase the [Kingdom’s] attractiveness for foreign investment,” Vanak said, adding that more revenue would also enable to government to repay foreign debt and save funds for a force majeure event.