PHNOM PENH, Jan. 2 (Xinhua) -- A well-known expert has called on the Cambodian government to devote more resources to the rural sector in efforts to mitigate the effects of the global economic crisis, the Phnom Penh Post reported on Friday.
While the tourism and garment sectors continue to struggle for access to international markets during the slowdown, Cambodia's agricultural sector holds the best hope of weathering the crisis, Kang Chandararot, president of the Cambodian Institute for Development Study, was quoted by the English-language daily newspaper as saying.
"We face a difficult situation, but the government should use most of the (nearly) 1 billion U.S. dollars of donor aid to develop our rural areas as a top priority," he said.
Greater improvements in rural development would cut poverty and reduce dependence on loans from banks or microfinance institutions, he said.
"While direct loans from banks and microfinance institutions provide necessary support, aid through the rural development and agriculture ministries should be used to modernize our agricultural methods," he said.
Such aid should be used to renovate Cambodia's aging water systems, find new seedlings and fertilizers, and improve rural markets, he said.
Cambodia used to be the major rice and some other rural products exporter in the region but years of war has made it lag behind Thailand and Vietnam in the past decades.
Currently, garment, tourism and infrastructure are the pillar industries of the kingdom.
While the tourism and garment sectors continue to struggle for access to international markets during the slowdown, Cambodia's agricultural sector holds the best hope of weathering the crisis, Kang Chandararot, president of the Cambodian Institute for Development Study, was quoted by the English-language daily newspaper as saying.
"We face a difficult situation, but the government should use most of the (nearly) 1 billion U.S. dollars of donor aid to develop our rural areas as a top priority," he said.
Greater improvements in rural development would cut poverty and reduce dependence on loans from banks or microfinance institutions, he said.
"While direct loans from banks and microfinance institutions provide necessary support, aid through the rural development and agriculture ministries should be used to modernize our agricultural methods," he said.
Such aid should be used to renovate Cambodia's aging water systems, find new seedlings and fertilizers, and improve rural markets, he said.
Cambodia used to be the major rice and some other rural products exporter in the region but years of war has made it lag behind Thailand and Vietnam in the past decades.
Currently, garment, tourism and infrastructure are the pillar industries of the kingdom.
11 comments:
Yes, they should spend more than 1.7% of the national budget to develop the rural area.
While investing for the long term agricultural infrastrutures in rural areas as stated in the article there is also a need for immediate assistance from the government to find market for Cambodian poor farmers to sales their crops.
Currently farmers are squeezed by those Siam & Yuon and even local blood-sucker mechants to sale their agricutural crops by severely under-cut the price/value. They are exploited/cheated for years.
Farmers have been screaming for help from the government for years.
Please help!
If Khmer farmers want to be more profitable, they need to stop listening to Pouk Ah tomato pickers oversea.
Dr. Kang Chandararot,
When in a market there is only one seller and a large number of buyers the situation is known as Monopoly. A producer who is monopolist has not to worry about his competitors in taking decision about level of production or a price. Monopoly frequently arises from government support or from collusive agreements among individuals, also known as a right granted by a government giving exclusive control over a specified commercial activity to a single party.
Without competition there is no alternative driver agent or economic incentive to improve. When something is monopolized, whether it be information, people, resources, power, it will certainly limits people the ability to evolve. Then, new ideas, new creations, and the new things that allow human beings to be human get dwindled down into a lifeless, factory produced whole. The consequences of monopoly will then destructively allow for environmental devastation, more and more of a population explosion as people seek comfort each other, more violence, and more chaos.
All of this and more are caused by the continuing growth of monopoly in our nation. Consequences begin to surface when a market is devoid of opposition or competition. The strength of monopoly is one of the reasons that the middle class presently in Cambodia is dissolving, and the gap between the poor and the rich is widening. This is a symptom of a nation in the midst of transforming into a Stone Age country.
P.S. no country achieved successful economic development before 1914 without adult literacy rates above 50% and your “called on the Cambodian government to devote more resources to the rural sector” is key to economic development, because it provides the conditions that enable technical progress and export-expansion to induce widespread economic growth.
oh my god, people seemed to misunderstand and distorted the real situation, here. cambodia is not saling agricultural lands to the oil-rich countries of the middle east, they are just leasing the land as these countries needed lands to produce agricultural products from cambodia. that's all, not saling. and they called themselves and educators? go figure! that's a bunch of bs to say such thing about cambodia! if what they are saying or claiming is true, cambodia will not have a country to call cambodia anymore! NOT true!
We know not sale lans , but lease... 99 years figure it out...
do the time table...how many khmer people grow with 99 years...
Im afraid khmer must buy rice from to survice...that all.
Think about it..
khmer Takeo
Investing in Cambodia rural is investing in Cambodia future and prosperity not to mention massive poverty reduction.
If the government can lift the poor our of poverty, the government will lift the economy as well.
china leased hong kong to the british and look how hong kong develop, the forest of skyscrapers and the perhaps, the driving force behind china strong economy. after 99 years, hong kong was returned to china. i see nothing wrong or corrupt with hong kong. i hope cambodia can learn from the hong kong experience. and leases don't have to be 99 years, can be less than that. that said, doesn't mean lease all of cambodia; i think it's a good idea to lease certain feasible areas, say, like an island, or a coastal city or province like the newly designated provinces of kep, sihanoukville and pailin, etc... the key is khmer people have to be smart about everything. of course, you can't just lease all of cambodia to just anybody! the leasee has to be from a rich, western or eastern country and must allow freedom for all khmer people to do business, etc on the leased lands, etc... again, this is just a suggestion, not a set in stone thing. it's called debating or brainstorming for concepts or ideas! god bless cambodia.
remember, though, cambodia cannot allow the thieves siem and youn to lease our lands as they were historical enemies of the khmer people, khmer should learn from the past because we lost a lot of lands to these historical enemies/thieves. thus, as a rule of thumb, cambodia must not allow or trust these two neighbors and laws should forbid them to lease any khmer lands at all. i think khmer people would prefer leasees from the distance lands of western society or industrialized nations or something, but not the vietnamese or the thai for crying out loud. we, khmer people, cannot trust them in a million years! god bless cambodia.
and of course, they must use khmer labor, not the siem or youn labor forces at the expense of cambodia like the french colonialism did to cambodia. never again! god bless cambodia.
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