Generous subsidies for businesses and tax incentives for consumers are needed if developing countries like Cambodia are to promote renewable energy alternatives — particularly in rural areas — a conference in Phnom Penh on green energy was told last week.
At the moment, conference participants said, such incentives are lacking.
“Cambodian investors have low investment capital,” said Rin Seyha, the managing director of SME Renewable Energy, a Cambodian-based renewable energy investment firm. Unlike neighboring Vietnam, there is little in the way of tax incentives and subsidies on loans for renewable energy companies, he said.
Jeroen Verschelling, the director of Kamworks, a Cambodian-based solar energy company, said consumers who wished to use more environmentally friendly energy sources were often forced to ask for help from microfinance institutions that tend to provide loans with extremely high interest rates.
Mr. Verschelling said large scale coal plant and hydropower projects were able to easily secure financing. For smaller, renewable projects, he said, “It is much harder to do that.”
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Generous subsidies for businesses and tax incentives for consumers are needed if developing countries like Cambodia are to promote renewable energy alternatives — particularly in rural areas — a conference in Phnom Penh on green energy was told last week.
