Cambodia’s economy is highly dependent on water resources for food production, rural livelihoods and economic development. The Rectangular Strategy and the National Strategic Development Plan stress the need to improve agricultural productivity through the expansion of irrigation and the management of water resources to reduce vulnerability to natural disasters.

Rainfall distribution and river discharges are highly seasonal, variable and unpredictable, with a natural pattern of wet and dry seasons, typhoons, floods and droughts. Coupled with this, the annual rise and fall of the Mekong River has both positive and negative effects—sustaining the critical water cycles of the Tonle Sap Lake and Lower Mekong delta necessary for agriculture and fisheries production, but with the potential to cause major flooding and damage to infrastructure and crops, and loss of life.

In this spirit, Royal Government of Cambodia have to make further effort to restore and expand physical infrastructure, build institutional capacity and human resources, promote private sector participation in agriculture and water, enabling us to effectively and timely respond to the real need of agriculture and water development in Cambodia to become one of the largest milled rice export countries in the world and transform rice fields into all-season green fields.