From February 17-25, WPO (World Packaging Organisation – www.worldpackaging.org) Vice President of Marketing, Soha Atallah, was in Cambodia as part of the UNIDO (United Nations Industrial Development Organization - www.unido.org) program to help establishing a Packaging Center. Her assignment was to validate the findings from the previous mission of WPO experts, by holding a workshop with the relevant SMEs as well as on-site assessment of the identified host for the Packaging Center. “On the occasion, we could assess the requirements and capacities in terms of staff and infrastructure of the host RUA - Royal University of Agriculture to establish the Packaging Center in Cambodia”, explains Soha.
According to her, it was also possible to prepare a roadmap for this Packaging Center, with phase wise action plan, taking into consideration the existing capacity and the needs. The workshop, attended by around 50 professionals from the public and private sectors, SMES, and the academic institutions, validated the findings of the WPO expert. “WPO is supporting UNIDO in this project, in the packaging aspect, mainly in output 3*. This is the second WPO mission to Cambodia; the first one was in September 2023”, reminds Soha.
UNIDO has already an active project in Cambodia that is co-funded by the European Union. The project “Cambodia CAPFISH capture: post-harvest fisheries development”, has the following outputs:
- Output 1: Enhanced technical competence and sustainability of the Competent Authority and official control services supporting the post-harvest fisheries.
- Output 2: Enhanced private sector capacity to comply with international standards and market requirements relevant to the post-harvest fisheries.
- *Output 3: Enhanced business competitiveness of post-harvest fisheries through innovation and R&D.
- Output 4. Project management, monitoring and evaluation.
“We are proud to see another successful result of UNIDO and WPO MOU for cooperation signed in 2017. This project in Cambodia is another collaborative initiative being implemented by both organizations. To support the establishment of a Packaging Center in the country is also part of WPO mission to raise the voice for packaging all over the world”, states Luciana Pellegrino, WPO President.
The packaging sector in Cambodia is under construction and most of the packaging materials are still imported from Thailand, Vietnam and China. “The most important part of the project in Cambodia is to provide capacity to the Packaging Center staff and to raise awareness on the importance of packaging among SMEs and consumers in the country”, summarizes WPO VP Marketing, Soha Atallah.