The Cambodian rubber plantation industry
knew about an important development before being ruined by the civil war during
the last twenty years. A plan of raise was the object of profound
discussions between the Cambodian authorities and the French cooperation, an
agreement having intervened on its main objectives that are the
privatization of the industrial rubber plantations tree, nationalized in
1979, and the development of the family rubber plantation, on which the
sector of rubber.
Objectives, justification and means of the project
The pilot project, for three years, has the objective of testing, on 1500 ha of land, the most
suitable solutions to the technical, institutional and financial plans,
permitting a development of family rubber plantations on a large scale. At the
end of the pilot phase, a decision was made to start a structural program on around
20 000 ha, with the involvement of the World Bank. The World Bank expressed its
interest and participated, as observer, to the assessment of the pilot project.
This project essentially applies to small farmers cultivating less than 5
hectares but the system will be equally tested for individual plantations of
bigger dimension.
Organization of the project
The development of the family rubber plantation should be confided to a national
structure, of type society "mixed economy", associating the various partners of
the project.
Considering the long delay of entry in production of the rubber tree, the
project will facilitate the setting up of a long term credit whose conditions
would be the following: Length of 20 years (maximum), differed in capital and
interests of 10 years, The refund of the credit by the farmer will only begin
the year 11.
