Prime Minister Hun Sen warned rubber plantation owners who prevent farmers from freely marketing their rubber products to stop intimidating and pressuring the poor.
The premier last week blamed the businesses for forcing rubber farmers to sell their products to them for unreasonable prices.
“You companies, do not use internal rules to prevent them from going somewhere to find buyers who pay higher prices,” Hun Sen said. “If you do, I will remove you. You shouldn’t act like the empire of the rubber region. People are not your tools.”
In the speech broadcast on Apsara Radio, Hun Sen then said he would take back more than 300,000 hectares of unused concession land in order to give them to poor farmers.
Rubber plantations used to be one of the major industries under the French colonial rule, but it is now a struggle to compete with better products in neighboring countries. About 17,000 people are employed in the rubber industry.
The government has taken several measures to encourage farmers to grow rubber trees in the past few months. Hun Sen said farmers are being encouraged to own land and use small-scale loans with low interest rates to start farming rubber trees.
The government is also hoping privatization efforts will entice foreign investors. Most of the plantations are run by seven semi-autonomous companies, but they are preparing for buy-ins by foreign investors or joint ventures.
