Visit of French journalists specializing in economics at Confirel

Four French journalists specializing in the economy representing France Info, the Journal des Français à l’Etranger, Le Figaro, La Croix and L’Opinion visited the Confirel production on Friday October 7 and met Dr. Hay Ly Eang, president and founder of Confirel.

This meeting was part of a press trip to Cambodia organized by the agencies Beyond Media Cambodia, in Phnom Penh, and be-rp in France to allow these journalists to have a better vision of the economic development of Cambodia, a country very little known from this point of view in France and in Europe.

During five days in Phnom Penh, these journalists met ministers – Economy, Transport and minister in charge of the Cambodia Development Council -, businessmen – Sear Rithy from Worldbridge, Dr. Hay Ly Eang from PPM Confirel, Arnaud Darc from Thalias, etc., – Cambodian experts – Antoine Fontaine, Adrienne Ravez, Blaise Kilian, etc. – and visited numerous construction sites including the future international airport of Phnom Penh in Kandal Province.

At Confirel, where they were welcomed by Hym Piseth, General Manager in charge of Human Resources and Public Relations, Saket Sopheaseila , Deputy Director and Try Yorn, Director of Finance, they were able to visit the production site as well as Labiocert, food and drug analysis laboratory, before tasting the company’s specialities.

Claude Langlois, for the Journal des Français à l’Étranger, wrote a series of articles telling the day-to-day of this visit. Here is episode 1, in which he recounts his meeting with Dr. Hay. “Despite eight hours of delay due to a missed transfer to Hong Kong (thank you Cathay Pacific!), we are immersed right out of Phnom Penh airport in the heart of the bustle of the city. Time to reach the Penh House Hotel, a stone’s throw from the royal palace, and we are seated in the company of Dr Hay Ly Eang, owner of the place and above all creator and developer of Confirel, the first certified agri-food company. “Our specialty is palm sugar,” explains the jovial Khmer entrepreneur, in perfect French. We focus on organic. The problem is that in your country, it is confused with palm oil which has a very bad image because of deforestation! “

It must be said that this palm sugar is used by Confirel in numerous preparations, both to make chocolate (with cocoa made in Cambodia) and to make aperitif drinks such as the Mekong cremant. “Our other flagship product is the famous Kampot pepper, considered the best in the world,” continues the affable Dr. Hay Ly Eang. Our pepper is of course organic and labeled by Ecocert for Europe, Japan and for the United States”. A pioneering company, Confirel is above all a fight for its creator, also a pharmacist and builder of the first pharmaceutical laboratory in the country. “We must transform our agriculture into organic quality productions with high added value, he underlines, to allow farmers to live better. The challenge is essential, to develop the campaign on a responsible model to reduce the growing gap with the urban world. We must not forget that the poverty of the countryside favored the accession of the Khmer Rouge to power”. In Cambodia, the food industry is a sector with a future where everything remains to be done. Mango, one of the flagship products, is exported in all its forms (rolls, dried, candied, etc.) and the Mekong (which the country shares in particular with its imposing neighbors Thailand and Vietnam) is a Garden of Eden where all fruits and vegetables grow at will. The lands flooded by monsoon rains that we saw from the plane around the delta will still be a little more fertile once the water recedes. “Reducing Cambodia’s food dependency, which the Covid crisis has highlighted, has become a priority for the government, explains Emmanuel Scheffer, a Frenchman who has been living for a long time in Phnom Penh and who organized the trip with his agency BMC (Beyond Media Cambodia). They have everything they need, rich lands and quality products. Everything is to be done. » Like all the others, the agricultural sector is open to foreign investors, particularly in technologies that improve the supply chain and to increase the distribution of agricultural products in foreign markets.”