Cambodia draws up industrial policy towards high-tech integration

Cambodia draws up industrial policy towards high-tech integration

The master plan aims to modernise the Kingdom’s industrial engine, steering it away from traditional, labour-intensive manufacturing towards a high-tech, skill-driven economy capable of navigating rapid domestic and global disruptions.

Cambodia has drafted its next-generation National Industrial Development Policy (IDP) 2026-2035 towards modernisation based on skills and high technology to adapt to rapid changes in domestic and global industrial structures.

The blueprint aims to modernise the Kingdom’s industrial engine, steering it away from traditional, labour-intensive manufacturing toward a high-tech, skill-driven economy capable of navigating rapid domestic and global disruptions.

The draft policy is undergoing rounds of stakeholder consultations and inter-ministerial reviews before being officially finalised for the government’s approval.

According to the Cambodia Industrial Development Policy Working Group, the new IDP draft sets out four objectives, including creating high-skilled and high-tech jobs with better incomes; maintaining and deepening the rooting of Cambodia’s industrial structure to support long-term economic growth; building sectors that support increasing productivity of other industries; and guiding all relevant sectors to be ready for future trends and environmentally resilient.

Cambodia’s new industrial policy aims to modernise the economy from low-skilled labour to high-tech manufacturing by strengthening local capacity and integrating into global and regional supply chains, according to the Ministry of Economy and Finance Secretary of State Hean Sahib.

“The introduction of this new industrial development policy is essential to respond to the changing structure of Cambodian industry as well as rapidly changing regional and global trends,” said Sahib, who is also Permanent Vice President of the Supreme National Economic Council and Chairman of the Cambodia Industrial Development Policy Working Group, during an inter-ministerial meeting held last Thursday in Phnom Penh.

The new policy is a continuation from the Industrial Development Policy 2015-2025, which formed a guide to transform and modernise Cambodia’s industrial structure to a skill-driven industry by 2025.

One of the IDP’s ambitions is developing and modernising small and medium enterprises, for example, through expanding their industrial linkages.

As Cambodia approaches graduation from LDC status and structural global trade preferences begin to phase out, the nation is pivoting toward high-value-added production, domestic self-reliance, and international regulatory compliance.

The development of the new policy follows a massive surge in industrial diversification, and with the Foreign Direct Investment inflows are now directed at non-garment sectors such as electronics, tyres, furniture, and parts.

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