On November 12, 1999 morning at 8:30 the Council of Ministers convened a plenary cabinet meeting, presided over by Samdech Hun Sen Prime Minister of Royal Government of Cambodia in order to review and pass:

1. The draft law on financial plan for the management of the year 2000
2. The proposal to adopt a protocol over the amendment of an agreement on Common Effective Preferential Tariff Scheme for ASEAN Free Trade Area

After the active discussions and view exchanges the cabinet achieved the results as follows:

The draft law on financial plan for the management of the year 2000

The cabinet approved the draft law on financial plan for the management of the year 2000, organized by the Ministry of Economy and Finance to determine budget in order to strengthen the process of public economic and financial reforms and to go smoothly with the reforms of other sectors such as the reform of economic management towards an effective and efficient level, restructuring of economy and reinforce the mechanism to ensure the implementation of the reforms. In this spirit, the budget plan for 2000 is organized on the basis of main economic indicators as follows:

1. On the basis of firm price, Gross Domestic Product will be increased by 5.5 percent, in which agricultural products be increased by 3 percent, manufactured products by 6 percent, constructions by 8 percent while tourism is scheduled to be increased by 17 percent.
2. Inflation level will stand at 5 percent
3. No loans from National Bank
4. Basic Riel exchange rate is at 3800 Riels per dollar
5. The amount of currency will increase by 16 percent compared with the increase in GDP according to current price in the rate of 9.24 percent.
6. Net exports will increase by 10.9 percent compared with the increase in imports of 11.9 percent.
7. Gross allocated capital of banking system will increase from $426 million by the end of 1999 to $486 million by the end of 2000.
8. General revenues of state budget stand at 2,355,000 million Riels or about $620 million and the maximum sum of credit to spend general state budget on the management of 2000 is fixed at 2,355,000 million Riel.

The draft law also indicates that defense and security spending will be reduced from 3.8 percent in 1999 to 3.5 percent of GDP in 2000. In 2001 the spending will drop to 2.5 percent of GDP.

According to the budget plan for the year 2000, the budget for education will increase to 47 percent and health to 51 percent. Also, the budget for the protection of environment and for rural development will be doubled, culture to 59 percent, agriculture to 11 percent and justice to 173 percent.

The budget plan for the year 2000 will meet the new demands and some other allocations.

The cabinet also noted that currently the corruption has fallen down, in which the Royal Government has decided and taken measures to combat and eliminate, such as the corruption in forestry sector by getting rid of forestry anarchy , the corruption in tax revenues by setting out the firmest actions in taxation sector, the corruption in military sector by removing ghost soldiers and their dependants in a large number. In addition, the Royal Government has seized back the illegally owned lands and so on.

The cabinet adopted the protocol over the amendment of an agreement on Common Effective Preferential Tariff Scheme for ASEAN Free Trade Area in order to complete formalities as determined by ASEAN , then submitted to the National Assembly for ratification.

The cabinet meeting ended at 14:15 p.m.

Phnom Penh, November12, 1999