China and Cambodia are to open initial talks about a free-trade deal, with Beijing under pressure from the trade war with the United States and Phnom Penh facing scrutiny over human rights concerns.
A preliminary feasibility consultation for a free-trade agreement (FTA) between the two nations is set to start in Beijing on Tuesday, according to the Chinese embassy in Cambodia.
The negotiations – the first formal talks on such a deal between China, Asia’s biggest economy, and Cambodia, one of its poorest – were part of an “important consensus” reached by the top leaders of the two countries, the embassy said.
