Oringinal report from Phnom Penh
10/04/2007
Everyday Cambodians and labor leaders said this week they had a hard time seeing improvement in their lots, despite a recent World Bank report touting the country's high economic growth rate.
While the economy may be growing, they said, it meant little to most people, especially laborers, with the cost of fuel and other consumer goods rising.
"The economic growth is reflected in the families of the wealthy and the powerful," said Chea Mony, president of the Free Trade Union of Workers of the Kingdom of Cambodia. "The workers' [monthly] salaries go up $5 to $45, but the commodities are still high and so is the gasoline price."
A recent World Bank report put the country's growth rate at 10.5 percent last year and projected 9 percent this year. The growth was being pushed especially by tourism at Angkor Wat, which sees an increasing number of visitors each year.
World Bank country manager Nisha Agrawal said that when one sector drives the growth, workers outside the industry sometimes do not feel the effects.
"So for example at the moment, say, tourism growth is higher than agricultural growth. Who benefits from tourism growth? Not so many poor people work in tourism as they do in agriculture," she said. "What's important now is, now that the government has prepared an agricultural strategy, to try to implement it."
Meanwhile, Cambodia remains one of the poorest countries on Earth, while a gap between the rich and poor is widening.
"Poor people are still poor," a vendor at Old Market told VOA. "The gasoline price is still high. The poor people work hard all the time and dare not quit."
"The poor people have nothing," a motorcycle taxi driver said. "The rich people are progressing…. I get 10,000 riel ($2.50). I have to take out gasoline, expenses, food, and there is nothing left."
Economic growth may be high, said Sok Hach, director of the Economic Institute of Cambodia, "but the workers' salaries decrease or are lower. The GDP is up, but to say the income goes up too is wrong."
While the economy may be growing, they said, it meant little to most people, especially laborers, with the cost of fuel and other consumer goods rising.
"The economic growth is reflected in the families of the wealthy and the powerful," said Chea Mony, president of the Free Trade Union of Workers of the Kingdom of Cambodia. "The workers' [monthly] salaries go up $5 to $45, but the commodities are still high and so is the gasoline price."
A recent World Bank report put the country's growth rate at 10.5 percent last year and projected 9 percent this year. The growth was being pushed especially by tourism at Angkor Wat, which sees an increasing number of visitors each year.
World Bank country manager Nisha Agrawal said that when one sector drives the growth, workers outside the industry sometimes do not feel the effects.
"So for example at the moment, say, tourism growth is higher than agricultural growth. Who benefits from tourism growth? Not so many poor people work in tourism as they do in agriculture," she said. "What's important now is, now that the government has prepared an agricultural strategy, to try to implement it."
Meanwhile, Cambodia remains one of the poorest countries on Earth, while a gap between the rich and poor is widening.
"Poor people are still poor," a vendor at Old Market told VOA. "The gasoline price is still high. The poor people work hard all the time and dare not quit."
"The poor people have nothing," a motorcycle taxi driver said. "The rich people are progressing…. I get 10,000 riel ($2.50). I have to take out gasoline, expenses, food, and there is nothing left."
Economic growth may be high, said Sok Hach, director of the Economic Institute of Cambodia, "but the workers' salaries decrease or are lower. The GDP is up, but to say the income goes up too is wrong."
10 comments:
This is the game the World Bank plays...ha,ha,ha,...
I told you many times that where there is World Bank there is sheer poverty...
So what are you really saying, WB
corrupted? Is it possible that
someone paid them to forecast their
news?
As for the Jobs, if you don't want
it, just quit, but don't fucking
push no company out the door.
Have some respect for the jobless
who wanted that job. Comprendre?
The World Bank's assessment of economic development is not always rights. Some ten years ago it painted a very rosy picture of the Indonesian economy. That economy collapsed a few months later and with it the Suharto regime also collapsed.
It should be added that World Bank-funded projects are not all successful. Also some ten years ago, at an international conference, the World Bank president at that time admitted that some 60 percent of such projects had failed.
The World Bank has yet to prove its performance in poverty reduction around the world. So far it is not so good.
Cambodia needs a lot more entrepreneurs-producers-exporters-wealth creators and a lot less speculators, traders and corrupters.
Are Cambodian tycoons really wealth creators? Many are speculators-importers-traders-wealth destoyers-corrupters. Some of them have bought their title of Oknha.
Has any best worker, employee, peasant, farmer, teacher, artist, techincien, engineer, doctor, scholar been awarded a medal or the title of Oknha? No, to my knowledge. Only some NGO workers have received medals or wards from foreign organisations or governments.
The government needs to create conditions favourable to wealth creation and also reward wealth creators. It should promote the exhibitions of locally produced or made products and reward those who have bred the biggest ox, buffalo, goat, pig, chicken, duck, etc..; those who produced the most rice, corn, bean, etc... per hectare of land, or the biggest pumkin,cucumber, water melon, durion,etc...; those cpmapany which has best cared for the well-being of its employees and workers, has exported the most, or has the most innovation, etc...
Schools educate children first and turned them into doers, entrepreneurs, creators, producers, artists after their their schooling.
There are a lot more to do to help wealth creation.
LAO Mong Hay, Hong Kong
LOL, I think you are reading too
much Gringo's text book, Lao. This
is SE Asia, not Europe.
Right now, we are in no position
to pick and choose what type
of job to bring in or not to
bring in. Any job will do. Even
if it is totally dirt job. The
objective is to eliminate jobless.
That should naturally force the
tycoon to treat his employee better
if he is to grow in Cambodia. If
the tycoon can't grow, it will
generally die naturally. What is
so unreasonable about that?
Continue: And yes, we should also
create Engineer, Scientist, ...,
and Astronaut as well, but you are
looking too far ahead, and that is
dangerous. You may trip and break
you nose. I am sure you have heard
the local saying, if you live in
Hong Kong. If not go down the stair
and ask one of the chin, LOL.
To 12:46
I bet many centuries ago some Europeans would reason just as you did: this Europe and not Rome (which had a very high civilisation).
I tell you, in the 19th century a western visitor to Japan told the Japanese that their country could never become a prosperous one, it would remain as backward as ever.
To 12:56
Who knows, one day a Khmer fellow could become an astronaut. There are non-Americans and non-Russians who have become astronauts. When I was young, I was told that a Khmer fellow had graduated in nuclear physics. I thought that nuclear physics was useless for Cambodia. As it has turned out I was wrong. That Khmer fellow is very useful at least to help our governments understand nuclear bombs, the non-proliferation treaties and the current conflict over Iran's nuclear programme.
Please keep on challenging one another. I enjoy such debates. The French would say "Des discussions jaillit la lumiere.". We might even become friends when we meet in person. Who knows.
LAO Mong Hay, Hong Kong
Frankly, Loa, I don't dissagree
much with your idea for Cambodia.
Our difference merely laid in the
time frame. While my idea focus on
filling everyone immediate need,
that is jobs, jobs, jobs, your
focus on everyone future need,
that is Engineer, Scientist, ...,
and Astronaut. I can't argued with
that, it is just that that is
unlikely to happen by 2010 and
allowed us to enter hitech
industry and boost up our income
per capita by 10 times +. Right
now I don't care about our low
income per capita. I will be happy
to see everyone got something to
do other than begging all over the
place. The one thing that I love
about Khmer people in general is
that once they got their basic
need, they don't bother anyone
for more. They do not stress
themselves out or try to kill
each other just to get ahead. Of
course I am not refering to our
city idiots.
As for the Japanese and Westerners
achievements. I hope we don't
follow their role model, they
all have something in common, that
is they are all sluggers and
conquerers and they used what they
robed to industrialize and further
develop their nation. To try to
catch up with their achievement is
highly unlikely, but who know?
Maybe we just got more oil than
we think we have.
And I agree with you also about
the debate.
To 6:17
The Khmers used to be like the Japanese. They copied others (the Indians), but they did better. Look at their temples. The king builders must have thought long term as it would take a long time to build those temples. Jules Verne, a French writer, dreamt that one day man would land on the moon and wrote a book about it. And that writer was very poor.
A visionary leader would think what kind of citizen a baby now being born while I'm writing this comment would become when he or she is 16 or 18, what job he or she would have. Not when he or she is 16 or 18.
A visionary leader would think of the long-term effect of hand-outs that are given to people in exchange for their votes. He would also think of the long-term effect when people are punished for critically calling for the protection of the borders of their country.
In Khmer culture, planners or thinkers are not appreciated. The folk story Chau Chak Smok is very illustrative. A boy named Chau Chak Smok, while at the top of a palm tree, was planning to become rich, starting from making boxes made of palm leaves, selling them, then using the money to rear chickens, then rearing cows, selling cows to use money to extend to other busineses, and finally becoming rich. But the author of the story made him giddy with his wealth and arrogant. The arrogant Chau Chak Smok kicked his servants in his dream at the top of the palm tree. His leg actually made the kicking movement. He then lost his hold and fell off the tree.
Those who plan and think far ahead would be disaragingly called Chau Chak Smok.
I strongly believe that the absence of long term thinking or planning is one of the causes of the Khmer race's decline. Look at Pol Pot's forced evacuation of people from Phnom Penh and other towns in 1975, 32 years ago this 17 April. He did not think of how to feed and house them, the starvation that ensued, and the lack of strength to witstand the Vietnamese aggression. The government build roads, but scarcely think of any plan to maintain them in the long run. There are other examples to illustrate this lack of long term thinking.
My family name is Lao, and my first name is Mong Hay. I was born in 1945 in a peasant family. While young I dreamt of acquiring as much knowledge as possible and I enjoyed doing it. I left my formal education in 1964 after finishing the equivalent of grade 10 today to work to earn a living, but I always dreamt of getting a PhD which I did in 1982 from a British university.
I should add that I have in me four cultures: Khmer, Chinese, French and British. I have travelled to over 30 countries. I stayed and worked for prolonged periods of time in Britain, Singapore, Thailand, Canada and Hong Kong.
I'm proud to be Khmer, and I don't have any other nationality.
LAO Mong Hay, Hong Kong
Mr. Lao, only if the Government officials can think that way. But obvisouly they don`t really care. Not even Re-Edcucation for these folks would help. All they see is greed, and power. There attitude goes a long way, because here in the states I always here old folks say things like when they are mad to others "If we were back in the Country, you would be DEAD in the forest right now". That kind of attitude came from generations before them. For that attitude is so common among the Sihanouk times.
Lao, yes, we used to be like the
Japanese when we were the conquerer
like them. We slaughtered the
natives in the region and take all
their wealth for our own selfish
benefit. What is there to be proud
about? And look what happened to
us from that moral value? Everyone
in the region want everything for
themselves, hehehe. I say no. We
must get rid of that evil
mentality if our culture is to
survive til the end of the world.
And that is why our anscestor
brainwashed us to be the way we
are over times. Don't trade or
forefather wills for foreigners'
or we will regreted it.
As for the long term planning,
you are generally right, but I
argue that is is not practical
because of our wealth. We can
have many many many dreams. The
question is can we afford to
support everyone dreams? Therefore,
let us put all our dream on the
self along with our valuable,
and when the time is right, we'll
go over it.
Again, I don't see any significant
diffence or issue with your ideas,
Maybe, we'll meet one day and share
some more when the time permits.
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