Since November 10, 2018, H.E. Mr. Sok Sopheak has been nominated by the Royal Government of Cambodia as a Secretary of State of the Ministry of Commerce, following his two-year assignment as an Under Secretary of State since early 2016. His main role is in charge of the General Directorate for Trade Support Services and the General Directorate for International Trade and Reform Policy.

H.E. Mr. SOK Sopheak holds diploma in Electricity Development from Technology Institute of Cambodia in early 1986, a bachelor’s degree in Economics from the Faculty of Business in Cambodia in 1992 and master’s degree in Economics and Finance from the School of Orientation for African Study of the University of London, UK in 1997. He also earned another master’s degree in Public Policy from Saitama University, Japan in 2000.

He served for the Provincial Government of Cambodia as Director of Electricity Power Plant Authority of Koh Kong Province since 1988 and moved to work in the Ministry of Commerce (MoC) in 1992. He was promoted as Director of ASEAN and International Organizations Department in 1999 and since then he has played a key role as trade negotiator for Cambodia’s economic integration to ASEAN, ASEAN Plus One FTA and the World Trade Organization (WTO).

He was promoted as Director General of International Trade, MoC in 2007 and moved to work as a Director General of the General Directorate for Trade Support Services under MoC in 2014, promoting the implementation of trade reform agenda and trade facilitation, including but not limited to, development of online business registration, application of online certification of origin, and online trademarks applications, and amendment of some laws and regulations etc.

Currently, he assumes a role as the Trade Negotiation Committee (TNC) lead in trade negotiations under Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) between ASEAN and six foreign participating countries and Chief negotiator for bilateral Free Trade Agreements and trade cooperation between Cambodia and its major trading partners. Moreover, he has been the lead of drafting teams of Law on Trade Remedy and Law on E-commerce which have come into force in 2017 and 2019, respectively. He has also been the lead of three drafting teams for draft law on commercial agent, amendment of law on Commercial Enterprise and amendment of law on Commercial Rules and Enterprise.

Pramila Crivelli is an economist at the Economic Research and Regional Cooperation Department of the Asian Development Bank (ADB). Her main fields of specialization are applied econometrics in international trade policy, regional trade agreements, trade negotiations, rules or origin, nontariff measures and geographical indications.

Prior to joining ADB in November 2020, she was an assistant professor at the Goethe University Frankfurt leading the Chair of International Trade. Her work has been published in academic peer reviewed journals including the Journal of International Economics and the World Economy.

She received her PhD from the University of Geneva, Switzerland. She accumulated extensive experience in applied economic policy and technical cooperation serving as an economic affairs officer at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, researching at the European University Institute and the World Trade Organization, and carrying out consultancies for various clients in Asia and Africa. She has a strong expertise in delivering capacity building and advisory services to governments, public and private institutions, and trade negotiators in multilateral and regional fora.

Kijin Kim is an economist in the Economic Research and Regional Cooperation Department, Asian Development Bank. Since he joined the ADB in 2017, he has been working on trade, trade facilitation, and trade finance within the context of regional cooperation and integration (RCI). He contributed to ADB’s publications on these areas including the Asian Economic Integration Report, Trade Finance Gaps, Growth, and Jobs Survey, and Trade Facilitation and Better Connectivity for an Inclusive Asia and Pacific.

Before joining ADB, he was a research fellow of the Regional Economics Applications Laboratory at the University of Illinois since 2012. From 2004 to 2010, he worked as economist at the Bank of Korea. He earned his PhD in economics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2016, focusing on research within the fields of regional economics and applied econometrics, centered on the role of labor markets, the effects of heterogeneity in consumption spending, and labor market participation on regional economies.