Cambodia Economic Analysis

In 2010, with the recovery of the world economy, Cambodia's economy also had got rid of the impact of the financial crisis,and realized the V-shaped reversal. In 2009 the economy grew by only 0.1% and 5.5% in 2010. Cambodian political and economic situation is stable, the steady increase in the agricultural harvest, the garment industry had got out of the doldrums. The growth rate of tourism was more than expected. Inflation has been effectively controlled, the prices were basically stable , the market supply is adequate, and the standard of people's living is improving.

The agriculture yield is continues to grow. In 2010, there is 2.763 million hectares for growing rice​​,and finished 104.9% of the plan. The rice production is 7.99 million tons,which of the output value accounted for 11.5% of GDP. Other crop of output value accounted for 7% of GDP , livestock was about 4.6% of GDP, and fishing accounted for 7.6%, and forestry 2.8%. Except meeting the domestic demand, there are 3.8 million tons of paddy of profits,which is about 240 million tons of rice.There is ​​170,000 hectares land to natural rubber with a production of about 46,000 tons.

The garment industry was resume growth. Garment and real estate department are two carriages of the Cambodian industry. There were 91 new open companys in 2010, It was a total of 470 garment and shoe-making enterprises,which have creatd more than 300,000 jobs for Cambodia. Cambodia real estate remains was still continues in the doldrums. The annual construction investment was only $ 840 million.It has a decline of 57.7% a year-on-year.

The service sector growth is driven by the recovery of the tourism industry. In 2010, the tourism industry generated revenues of $ 1.79 billion for the Cambodian government with a year-on-year growth of 14.4%. Inbound tourists was up to 2.5 million per/passenger with an increase of 16.1%. The top three foreign tourists countries are Vietnam (467,000), South Korea (290,000), China (17.8 million). The recovery of the tourism market directly contributed to the development of the Cambodian financial, transportation, commercial retail, wholesale and hotel and catering industry.

Import and export showed a resumption of growth. In 2010,the value of Cambodia's imports and exports was totaly 10.472 billion U.S. dollars with a growth of 12%. Among this, the exports was $ 4.363 billion with a growth of 12.5%; the imports was about $ 6.109 billion with an increase of 9.8%. The trade deficit was about $ 1.746 billion. as an pillar export product, the Cambodian garment exports was about $ 2.97 billion with a growth of 24.3%, and also accounted for 84% of the total exports. Rice which the Cambodian government was trying to promote exports amounted to $ 27 million with a growth of 45%, but it was only 4.5 million tons, and there are still a long way to achieve the 2015 export target of 100 million tons from the Government. There was still based to imported garment raw materials, fuel feed, food and beverage, chemical, pharmaceutical, cosmetics, automotive and building materials. Cambodian import and export commodity structure is basically the same compared with the previous year.

Public investment was weak,and foreign investment was continued to decline. In 2010, the total investment in Cambodia was $ 2.757 billion, Which the public domain investment amounted to $ 802 million,and the private sector investment was $ 1.955 billion. The total investment of the year accounted for 24.1% of the GDP,, which accounted for 13.5% of the domestic part of foreign countries accounted for 10.6%. According to the Cambodian Development Council statistics, in 2010, the Cambodian foreign contracted investment was totaled $ 2.943 billion,which was down 51%; and there was $ 553 million there with a growth of 8.1%.

By multiple financing to make up for the lack of construction funds. Cambodian government through bilateral and multilateral diplomacy, and actively carry out multiple borrowing, to solve the problem of the lack of funds for construction. Successively by the World Bank, ADB, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and other international organizations, and China, South Korea, Japan and other countries total financing to $ 538 million in funding to address the lack of funds the government give priority to the development of public infrastructure projects issues, and to promote the economic development of Cambodia.

Although the Cambodian economy had achieved a V-shaped recovery, but the economic structure in Cambodia is a single, over-reliance on the garment, tourism and construction industries, which restricts the ability to withstand the crisis itself. In order to ensure the sustainable development of the national economy, in February of this year, Cambodian Prime Minister Hun Sen proposed to promote the national economy towards the path of development of industrialization, economic modernization and structural diversification. Hun Sen proposed three industrialized development direction: One is to increase the added value of the existing important areas. One is to develop potential of emerging industries, another is to tap the potential industries. Cambodia will expand the scale of attracting foreign investment, and actively introduce advanced foreign technology and industry, especially to attract large multinational companies to invest in Cambodian Economic Development Zone.