Agriculture Key to Overcoming Crisis: Expert

By Sok Khemara, VOA Khmer
Original report from Washington
06 October 2009

Of Cambodia’s main economic earners, it is not tourism or garments that will help it through the economic crisis, but rather agriculture, a leading Cambodian economist said Monday.

“What we have seen and learned from the world crisis is that the agricultural sector should be focused on as an economic target,” said Kang Chandararoth, head of the Cambodia Institute of Development Study, as a guest on “Hello VOA.”

A policy to set up a reserve fund for agriculture is the “pressing issue,” he said. Agriculture was Cambodia’s “gateway to growth.”

Tourism, garment export and construction have all been hard hit by the global economic downturn, with orders for clothing down, number of visitors diminishing and a depressed real estate market.

Kang Chandararoth said that if China’s growth was forecast at 8 percent next year, Cambodia could follow.

“If China can compete with the world and continue with industrialization, then China will bring us more garment work, and we will have benefits from China too, as a subcontractor,” he said.

Cambodia remained behind Vietnam, which “has a real plan and multiple goods to export,” he said. “Not like Cambodia, which does not have so many goods it can export.”

Vietnam’s growth was 4 percent, though Cambodia’s economy could decline 3 percent, he said.

As Losses Mount, Plans To Help Economy Emerge [-Where's that loud mouth PM who said that Cambodia will not be affected by the economic crisis?]

Kong Chandararoth, president of the Cambodian Institute of Economic Study and Development.

By VOA Khmer, Reporters
Reports from Phnom Penh & Washington
28 April 2009

Cambodia’s four main economic drivers have sustained multi-million dollar losses so far this year, despite insulation from the financial markets, a leading economist said Monday.

A report released by the International Labor Organization released Monday shows losses of $280 million in garments, $260 million in tourism, $180 million in agriculture and $45 million in construction.

Despite those losses, Cambodia remains somewhat insulated from the global financial crisis, said Kong Chandararoth, president of the Cambodian Institute of Economic Study and Development.

“Our country is not close to the financial market, so that does not have an impact as serious as other countries,” he said, as a guest on “Hello VOA.”

Cambodia’s agriculture has also made the global financial downturn easier that industrialized countries, he said.

Organizations like the International Monetary Fund and Asian Development Bank have warned that Cambodia’s economy will shrink this year, thanks to the financial crisis.

However, Kong Chandararoth said such predictions were “too dark about Cambodia,” and he predicted economic growth around 5 percent for 2009.

Cambodia’s situation is further different from other countries, he said, because it does not have a stock exchange or other financial markets, which have been hard-hit by the collapse of the US financial market.

Meanwhile, the government has prepared a package to restore the economy, including tax exemptions, tourism promotion, and help for construction, agriculture, garment factories and other investments.

The government announced Tuesday it will release $25 million to the agriculture and garment sectors, in an effort to mitigate the effects of the global downturn.

The money—$18 million to agriculture and $7 million to garments—will be used to increase farm production and help train people who have lost their jobs thanks to the slowdown.

Government officials made the announcement during the semi-annual donors meeting on Tuesday.

Cambodian gov't urged to invest more in agricultural sector [-Hun Sen rather sells agricultural lands to Gulf countries instead?]

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.

Official: Without Rule of Law, Stock Market Won't Fly

Sok Khemara, VOA Khmer
Washington
13 September 2007

Click here to listen to Sok Khemara hosts 'Hello VOA' in Khmer

Cambodia may want a stock market, but without a strong rule of law, no one will buy into it, according to lawmaker Monh Sophan, a member of the government coalition party, Funcinpec.

The law aims to encourage investment through a stock market, a new concept to Cambodia that includes the printing of bonds for sale, Monh Sophan said Thursday on "Hello VOA."

The law, on issuance and trading, would pave the way for a stock market in the next two years. It was passed one week after the government announced it wanted to have a stock market by 2009.

A strong market requires investor confidence, something that Cambodia has a hard time generating.

The rule of law must be stronger before investors will entrust their money to a stock market or other securities, Monh Sophan said.

A non-transparent, non-neutral stock market will not succeed, he added.

Kang Chandararoth, a Cambodian economist, has said that a committee of nine leaders from various national agencies will have to keep politics out of the securities market.

"This is critical to its survival," he said recently.

Seventy-nine lawmakers voted for the law, which was based on international best practices, officials said. The law is awaiting final approval by King Norodom Sihamoni.