Monday, March 09, 2009

IMF: Cambodian economy set to contract sharply [-The IMF dares to contradict our good Dr. Hun Xen?]

PHNOM PENH, March 9 (Xinhua) -- The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has made its most gloomy economic outlook for Cambodia, or 4.25 percent of growth in 2009, English-language daily newspaper the Phnom Penh Post said on Monday.

IMF blamed Cambodia's increasing exposure to the global financial crisis and warned the contraction could be even worse.

The revision marked an obvious downturn from the body's December forecast of 4.75 percent for 2009.

The review followed the visit on Wednesday of an IMF mission from the organization's head office in the United States.

"Real GDP (gross domestic products) is now projected to fall by about (half a) percent in 2009. Given the rapidly evolving global situation, a larger-than-usual degree of uncertainty exists around this projection and risks remain titled to the down side. The outlook for 2010 is also highly uncertain," the paper quoted a statement of the mission as saying.

Meanwhile, the mission concluded that the economic environment would remain "extremely challenging" into next year.

Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen once vowed to maintain a 6 percent GDP growth rate in 2009, while the National Bank of Cambodia (NBC) predicted a 5 percent growth.

The World Bank was only confident of a 4.9 percent GDP growth rate for Cambodia in 2009, and the Asian Development Bank 4.7 percent, according to their press releases.

Official figures show that the GDP growth rates of the country respectively stood at 10.3 percent in 2004, 13.5 percent in 2005, 10.8 percent in 2006, 10.2 percent in 2007 and 7 percent in 2008.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I wonder what Cambodia would be like if socheata rule the country.

Anonymous said...

IDIOTS!! "4.25 percent" In the Post, like the original IMF statement, predicted the GDP growth would fall TO MINUS 0.5 percent. NOT by 0.5 percent, as Xinhua wrongly claims. The means the new prediction is that Cambodia is in a recession. Check the original IMF statement here: http://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/pr/2009/pr0967.htm Very clear if you can read English.

Anonymous said...

12:43 PM

Job creation.