Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen (C) speaks at the first cabinet meeting in Phnom Penh, Cambodia on Sept. 7, 2018. Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen on Friday chaired the first cabinet meeting, revealing a number of priority tasks for the government to implement over the next five years. (Xinhua/Li Laey)
PHNOM PENH, Sept. 7 (Xinhua) -- Cambodian Prime Minister Samdech Techo Hun Sen on Friday chaired the first cabinet meeting, revealing a number of priority tasks for the government to implement over the next five years.
Hun Sen said the new government is carrying out the Rectangular Strategy Phase IV, which still mainly focuses on four priority sectors, namely human resource, road, water and power.
"Human resource development is considered as the first top priority in the sixth-mandate government," the prime minister said.
He added that the government would also concentrate on economic diversification, private sector development, innovation, new technologies, governance reforms, improvement of social justice, agricultural and rural development, natural resource management and environmental protection.
Hun Sen said the strategy is "aimed at increasing the living standard and well-being of the peoples, especially improving good governance and social justice as well as strengthening the quality of public services."
He said the strategy would ensure the sustainable economic growth of around 7 percent per annum in a medium term and reduce the poverty rate to less than 10 percent.
The prime minister added that it would also lay a concrete foundation for Cambodia to become an upper-middle income country by 2030 and a high-income country by 2050.
The National Assembly confirmed Hun Sen, 67, as the prime minister for another five-year term on Thursday after his Cambodian People's Party (CPP) won all 125 parliamentary seats in a July general election.
His new cabinet is made up of one prime minister, 10 deputy prime ministers, 17 senior ministers and 29 ministers.
All 28 ministers in the previous mandate retained their positions in the new term, while Mao Havannal, secretary of state for the state secretariat of civil aviation, was promoted to become the minister in charge of the state secretariat of civil aviation.
Hun Sen defended his decision to keep all old-term ministers in the new government, saying that his strategy was to maintain the old officials and to take in new ones at the same time.
"We have won the contest (election). If we kick them out, who will Hun Sen use in the next mandate?" he said in a speech at the first cabinet meeting.
The prime minister likens those ministers to wine and ginger, saying that wine is tastier when it is kept for longer, while ginger is spicier when it is older.
