International stakeholders from major cashew industry across the globe have converged at the ‘10th World Cashew Conference 2024’ in Sihanoukville to share their experiences, organise a coherent network to help the crop find competitive regional and global markets. Presiding over the conference (Feb 1-3), Aun Pornmoniroth, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Economy and Finance (MEF) appreciated the joint effort of MoC, Cashew Federation of Cambodia (CFC), Eventell Global Advisory Private Limited and all relevant ministries, institutions and stakeholders for co-organising this conference. He emphasised the importance of gathering stakeholders in the industry from both domestic and international to create valuable opportunities for discussion, exchange of information, knowledge and business networking. Cham Nimul, Minister of MoC, who was present along with Pornmoniroth, said, “The purpose of this conference is to bring together all the stakeholders across the countries to share experiences for further enhancing the cashew market regionally and globally through exhibitions and networking.” Cambodia has an area of 472,946 hectares of cashew plantations with a total output of 709,419 tonnes and the export of raw nuts to the international market is about 656,000 tonnes such as China, Japan, India, Bangladesh, Vietnam and Thailand while the processed nuts delivered to Czech Republic, South Korea, Netherland, the United States, China, Japan and Vietnam, she added. According to MoC press release, the Deputy Prime Minister recalled Prime Minister Hun Manet’s instruction to the Economic and Financial Policy Committee (EFPC) to set out the four measures to promote the processing and export of this priority agriculture product. The first measure is to strengthen and expand export capacity, starting from semi-products which focus on the export of dried cashew nuts. The second is to continue branding and marketing the products while the third measure focuses on promoting the formation and establishment of new cashew farming communities and lastly, examining the possibility of increasing investment capital to collect the nuts for processing and to invest in infrastructure for processing and store the products. He recommended several pieces of advice to further promote the sector such as the MoC must guide and coordinate with relevant ministries and the private sector to successfully implement the measures aimed at promoting the processing and export of cashew nuts to international markets through the mechanism called ‘Inter-Ministerial Commission’ to monitor and evaluate the implantation of the National Policy on Cashew 2022-2027. “MoC and stakeholders must continue to organise and participate in such business events and matching meetings frequently and introduce the benefit of crops to investors from both domestic and foreign.” The private sector and development partners must support and cooperate closely with the government to jointly promote the reputation and prestige of the products in the international area, he added. Uon Silot, President of Cashew nut Association of Cambodia (CAC) told Khmer Times, “The conference is so fruitful that on its last day, CAC has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the African Cashew Alliance (ACA) to promote the crop production to the interests of the private actors in Africa.” The agreement focuses on the exchange of experience between the two cashew-producing countries, facilitates access to farm and processing facilities visits in the respective countries, participates in learning forums and conferences, coordinates research exchanges between the two organisations, conducts both short and long-term training courses, and exchange of scientists and technicians.