Economic Setting:

Cambodia

Reported by:

Caren Joy S. Pacaco

(BSEd 3-B, Group 8)

Economic Setting:

Cambodia

• Cambodia is one of the world’spoorest nations. In 2006 its totalgross domestic product (GDP)was $7.3 billion, yielding a percapita GDP of just $511.30,among the lowest in the world.

Economic Setting:

Cambodia

Even before being plunged intocivil conflict in the 1970s,Cambodia lacked significantindustrial development, withmost of the labor force engagedin agriculture. The country wasself-sufficient in food and

Economic Setting:

Cambodia

produced exportable surplusesof its principal crops of rice andcorn. In spite of relatively lowyields and a single harvest peryear, Cambodia annuallyexported hundreds of thousandsof tons of rice.

Economic Setting:

Cambodia

The civil war from 1970 to 1975,the Khmer Rouge regime from1975 to 1979, and the Cambodia-Vietnam War from 1978 to 1979virtually destroyed Cambodia’seconomy. By 1974, underwartime conditions, rice had to

Economic Setting:

Cambodia

be imported, and production ofCambodia’s most profitableexport crop, rubber, fell offsharply. The civil unrest alsodisrupted Cambodia’s fledglingmanufacturing industry andseverely damaged road and railnetworks.

Economic Setting:

Cambodia

In 1975 the newly installedKhmer Rouge governmentnationalized all means ofproduction in Cambodia. Moneyand private property wereabolished, and agriculture wascollectivized (ownership was

Economic Setting:

Cambodia

transferred to the people as agroup, represented by the state).The Khmer Rouge Four-YearPlan, a utopian documentdrafted in 1976, envisagedmultiple plantings of rice and avastly expanded irrigation

Economic Setting:

Cambodia

system. The plan aimed toincrease income from exports ofrice and other products and touse this income to buymachinery with which toindustrialize the country. TheFour-Year Plan was poorly

Economic Setting:

Cambodia

thought out, brutally enforced,and unsuccessful. Riceproduction rose slightly, butbetween 1976 and 1978,hundreds of thousands of peopledied from malnutrition,overwork, and mistreated or

Economic Setting:

Cambodia

misdiagnosed diseases. TheKhmer Rouge executed hundredsof thousands more people whomthey judged to be enemies of theregime. The atrocities of theKhmer Rouge period decimatedCambodia’s labor force.

Economic Setting:

Cambodia

After the Khmer Rouge wereoverthrown in early 1979, thegovernment’s grip on agriculturalproduction loosened, andmillions of Cambodiansattempted to resume their livesas subsistence farmers. By the

Economic Setting:

Cambodia

mid-1990s Cambodia once againachieved self-sufficiency in riceproduction and began to exportsmall quantities of rice. Thecountry’s infrastructureimproved gradually in the 1990s,largely due to massive infusions

Economic Setting:

Cambodia

Cambodia’s poverty is maskedby the apparent prosperity ofsections of Phnom Penh.

Economic Setting:

Cambodia

In 2006 Cambodia had a laborforce of 6.9 million. Agriculturewas the largest employer,engaging 60 percent of theworkers. It is followed byservices (27 percent) andindustry (13 percent).

Economic Setting:

Cambodia

Underemployment in urbanareas is high, and workingconditions in developingindustries, such as clothingmanufacturing, are poor. Effortsto unionize factory workers haveencountered significantopposition from factory owners.

Economic Setting:

Cambodia

Agriculture is the largest sectorof Cambodia’s economy,contributing 30 percent of theGDP in 2006. Rice is Cambodia’smost important crop and thestaple food of the Khmer diet.More than one-half of cultivated

Economic Setting:

Cambodia

land—much of it of poorquality—is planted in rice.Rubber, Cambodia’s otherimportant export crop, is grownin plantations in the eastern partof the country. Corn, cassava,soybeans, palm sugar, and

Economic Setting:

Cambodia

pepper are also growncommercially, while cucumbersand fruits, including mangoes,bananas, watermelons, andpineapples, are raised for localconsumption. Chicken and pigsare widely domesticated, while

Economic Setting:

Cambodia

cattle and water buffalo areused for agricultural work.

Economic Setting:

Cambodia

Services, especially small-scalecommercial activities, accountfor 44 percent of Cambodia’sGDP. Since the late 1980sCambodia has encouragedtourism as an important sourceof foreign exchange, and the

Economic Setting:

Cambodia

Cambodia’s unit of currency isthe riel, consisting of 100 sen.The value of the riel shrank from700 riels per U.S.$1 in 1991 to anaverage of 4,103 riels per U.S.$1in 2006. Currency is issued by theNational Bank of Kâmpŭchéa,

Economic Setting:

Cambodia

established in 1980. There arerelatively few private banks inCambodia. Most of them areforeign-owned banks operatingin Phnom Penh and other cities.

Economic Setting:

Cambodia

Source:

Microsoft ® Encarta ® 2009. © 1993-2008 Microsoft

Corporation. All rights reserved.

Economic Setting:

Cambodia

Aw Khun!!!

Economic Setting

as we

Understanding

Economic Community

for

establish an

Republic of the Philippines

CAPIZ STATE UNIVERSITY

Dumarao Satellite College, Dumarao, Capiz

Theme: “Understanding Better the Political, Economic & Socio-Cultural

Settings of Southeast Asian Nations forPeace, Prosperity & People”

May 25, 2015 (8:00-11:30 am)

Campus Library