Cambodian News

Stephane Guimbert: Economy Specialist

The World Bank’s East Asia Economic Half-Yearly Update, which looks at regional economic growth including the Cambodian economy, was released early in November 2009. The World Bank Cambodia Newsletter had the opportunity to interview World Bank Senior Country Economist Stephane Guimbert on Cambodia’s economic outlook.

Please could you tell me, what is the outlook for the Cambodian economy?

After a decade of very rapid growth, Cambodia’s economy is contracting by 2.2 percent in 2009. Our projections suggest a better outlook for 2010, with a slow recovery and 4 percent growth. However this recovery would be slow by the standards of Cambodia’s rapid growth over 1998-2008. Our analysis of the economy suggests that the recovery would be driven by continued growth in agriculture and an expected rebound in tourism. The rebound in construction would be slow, while uncertainties in the garment sector remain high. Read the rest of this entry »

Cambodian Farmer

Sitting on a broken water drain, surrounded by a large field of rice paddy destroyed by Typhoon Ketsana last month, farmer Keo Oeun takes a deep breath when asked how the cyclone had affected him. “A whole hectare of my rice paddy was completely ruined,” he says, pointing to his damaged paddy field. “I am very worried about our shortage of rice to eat.” Read the rest of this entry »

Charya, 21 years old, in a light blue dress and with her face carefully made up, presses the palms of her hands together in the graceful, prayer-like sampeah gesture to greet the customer entering the beer garden where she works, then leads him to a table.

Charya has been a client-greeter for just one month. She used to be a worker in a garment factory, but in January 2009 the factory told her it could not extend her contract because there was no more work for her and her friends.

“When my second term of contract ended, Mekar [the supervisor] told me the factory could not give me any job,”

Charya said. “I was worried about my income. I had a very difficult time finding a job.” Within a month, though, Charya found a job as a waitress at a restaurant in Phnom Penh. But in the restaurant her wage is only $35 a month, half what she was paid as a garment worker. Read the rest of this entry »

Refining is a capital-intensive industry in a market driven by divergent forces—cleaner fuelsto address local air pollution; greater fuel efficiency against the backdrop of record oil prices; and steadily rising consumption of transportation fuels due to rising income, especially in developing countries. Part 2 of the briefing notes on refining discusses these topics and other global trends.

Profits boom on strong demand,” read the title of an article on refining in the September 2006 issue of Petroleum Economist. “Time to prepare for the downstream downturn,” read the title of an article on refining that appeared exactly a year later in the same industry journal. “People are beginning to reconsider investments, because they are seeing cost overruns, delays, and quality impairment,” the second article reported [1,2]. The refining industry has been subject to booms and busts, and the titles of these articles encapsulate the swings in the industry cycle. Read the rest of this entry »

Smart Mobile has cooperation with Cambodia’s leading commercial bank ACLEDA to offer credit top-ups at ATMs. The phone operator signed a deal with the bank in February.

Mobile service provider Smart Mobile (093/010) entered within the Cambodian telecoms market with a world-class team of telecommunications experts offering experience from across Cambodia and across the globe.

From today on, Smart Mobile’s subscribers will be able to recharge their cell phone balance through ACLEDA’s ATMs throughout the country 24 hours a day and 7 days a week without any service charge. The Phone operator setting up this new service is to make it easier for phone’s users to recharge the mobile phone balance.

According to the statement, in the near future top-up through ATM will be available at other banks as well. Read the rest of this entry »