[{"bbox": [96, 152, 1135, 419], "category": "Text", "text": "budgeting systems can be further strengthened and alignment of annual budget to Budget Strategic Plan (BSP), as strategic sector planning remains weak, except for health and education, resulting in weak links between policy and programmatic priorities. The selection process of capital investment projects and the lack of inclusion of recurrent budget costs for investment projects remain key issues to be addressed. Furthermore, the monitoring of budget execution to support effective policy-decisions throughout the year could be strengthened if the unified chart of accounts would include a functional classification and not only by sectors, as programme budgeting and programmatic classification are in place at central level. Lack of reporting in FMIS on implementation of externally funded projects which amount to three quarters of public investments is critical. The weakness of budget-policy linkage lets to public resource allocation not fully responsive to policy priorities, resulting in incomplete public service delivery, including also Gender Responsive Public Services (GRPS)."}, {"bbox": [96, 418, 1135, 604], "category": "Text", "text": "**Service Delivery** has improved as there has been significant progress in the information available on resources received by schools and hospitals and public access to key fiscal information, also thanks to the support provided to the increase of social accountability by the Implementation of the Social Accountability Framework (ISAF). The predictability of funds available to line ministries and agencies during budget execution and to Sub-National Administrations (SNAs) is a key support for efficient service delivery. Of particular concern for the efficient use of public resources is the persistent lack of performance of monitoring and transparency of the procurement systems."}, {"bbox": [96, 603, 1135, 1078], "category": "Text", "text": "**Domestic revenue mobilisation** has performed very strongly since the start of the PFMRP in 2004, when domestic revenue was at 8.5% of GDP. Under the Revenue Mobilization Strategy 2014-2018 (RMS-I) it soared to 22% of GDP. New taxes will be introduced, such as tax on capital gains, personal income tax and tax on e-commerce. Property tax is to be expanded and land property tax rate is to be increased (currently very low, at 0.5%). Tax incentives will be reviewed, the Investment Law revised, and tax expenditures quantified. Revenue administration will see the modernisation of the General Department of Taxation (GDT) and General Department of Customs and Excise (GDCE), with This remarkable performance, however, was put to an abrupt halt in 2020 with the Covid-19 crisis, with revenue falling back to 23.9% (2020) on the back of a contracting economy and fiscal stimulus package including tax cuts. With the crisis expanding well into 2021, revenue to GDP fell further to 21.6%. Revenue collection has been picking up in 2022 at 22.1% of GDP on the back of strong domestic consumption and increase in tourism. A Tax Administration Diagnostic Assessment Tool (TADAT) performance assessment report was finalised in January 2022 considers that: \"*Tax administration in Cambodia has benefited from concerted efforts to improve and introduce a range of international good practices. These improvements were clearly recognized [...] and are notable given the difficult economic environment in which the GDT is charged with administering the tax system*\". The assessment identified both a number of key strengths (\"*Good international practice exists in several areas*\"), but also several weaknesses (\"*many challenges remain*\"), some of which resulted in a low score in a number of important areas. The latter will need to be tackled in current and future planning of reforms."}, {"bbox": [96, 1080, 1135, 1134], "category": "Text", "text": "**In conclusion,** the public finance management reform strategy is sufficiently relevant and credible, including on domestic revenue mobilisation, and the eligibility criterion is met."}, {"bbox": [85, 1147, 553, 1174], "category": "Section-header", "text": "### 2.3.4 Transparency and Oversight of the Budget"}, {"bbox": [96, 1189, 1135, 1642], "category": "Text", "text": "The entry point is met as the enacted budget is published every year before the start of the fiscal year. The Budget Law 2023 was approved on 29 November 2022 by the Parliament, gazetted and published online. For the first time, in 2022 the draft budget (\"Executive Budget Proposal\") was also published upon submission to the National Assembly. The Budget Laws 2022 and 2023 and the Budget Settlement Law 2021 were submitted and approved timely. The mid-year budget execution report 2022 was produced timely. The financial statements were produced with delay as in previous years due to late closure of the accounts; the audit of financial statements by the National Audit Authority (NAA) was produced at the same time as the Budget Settlement Law but published with delay as in previous years. Cambodia has conducted a PEFA assessment update in 2020 (finalised in June 2021) and the last OBI was conducted in 2021. **Promoting budget transparency is one of the key objectives of the PFMRP CAP3+2 (Objective #44)**, with the following activities: improve indicators of budget transparency in PEFA report; increase comprehensiveness of budget documents and timeliness of public dissemination; organize public forum on Medium Term Fiscal Framework (MTFF) and annual budget with the aim to increase participation and access to the information by the public. **The main reference framework for budget transparency and oversight are in place.** The new PFS law will partially expand budget transparency with the publication of the full Executive Budget Proposal (mandated at Art 51) and a wider list of documents to be annexed to draft budget law submitted to parliament, including information on fiscal risks and annual performance plans. The list is wider than in the current law, but still falls short of 4 documents required by PEFA PI-5: debt stock (although information is"}, {"bbox": [1027, 1681, 1144, 1706], "category": "Page-footer", "text": "Page 13 of 34"}]