Cambodian Economy Reviews

Cambodia’s prime minister Hun Sen departed Vietnam on Saturday in order to attend a Vietnamese investor’s conference in Ho Chi Minh City. During this time, Cambodia and Vietnam has agreements with US$6 billion worth of investment into Cambodia to strengthen the cooperation in four sectors of commerce, tourism, energy and transportation.

The agreements were signed by Cambodian Minister of Commerce Cham Prasidh and Vietnamese Minister of Planning and Investment Vo Hong Phuc.

“We have the ambition and commitment to keep developing the investment atmosphere in Cambodia in order to promote it as the best in the region,” The Cambodia Daily quoted Hun Sen as saying.

The premier added that the passing of the investment law and the recent Council of Ministers approval of the anticorruption law, as well as Cambodia’s natural resources, showed that the country was ready for more investment.” Read the rest of this entry »

In order to maintain the interest of tourists and general public in Cambodia to avoid the exploitation of exchange rates among of the money exchange shops, and all currency conversation business, National Bank of Cambodia (BNC) announced that money exchange shops must show license.

Chea Chanto, NBC’s governor, also has warned tourists and the public to be careful of being defrauded by unlicensed money changers along Cambodia’s borders.

Money exchange shop

According to the announcement of NBC, “in order to guarantee personal interests and prevent accidental losses, the public should be careful, and in case of requiring the exchange of money, please, the public must change in shops that show their license, which is issued by the National Bank of Cambodia.”

The Phnom Penh Post quoted Chea Chanto as saying that “to avoid eventually losing out, customers should have their money exchanged at booths displaying operating licenses from the central bank.”

According to the notice, a few money changing shops, particularly along the border with Thailand have cheated visitors and have even passed counterfeit Cambodian riel to customers.

NBC inspection of money-changing racket on the Kingdom’s borders found many offered exchange rates far below the market rate, some as low as 2,500 riels for US$1. A dollar was worth 4,167 riels Monday, the Post reported.

A telecom price war that saw rates for callers plummet amid steep competition will cease, thanks to a government-directed floor that analysts say runs counter to the ideas of a free market.

An influx of companies into the country’s nascent phone market produced deep reductions in per-minute charges in recent years, with some rates offered as zero within networks.

The new policy now will not allow competitors to charge below $0.045 per minute within a network, nor $0.0595 for cross-network calls.

A government official said the price floor was the only way to stop an escalating problem, one that had already led to a dispute between the market leader, Mobitel, and a new competitor, the Russian operation Beeline. The price floor came after a series of directives failed to stop the competitive pricing. Read the rest of this entry »

Since the bilateral trade between Cambodian and Russia increased 30 percent, even though the Russian investment in Cambodia is estimated to be lower this year, compared to the last year.

Dilyara Borovik, a counselor at the Russian Embassy, gave a speech at the an event to mark the 30^th anniversary of the Russian Cultural Center in Phnom Penh that the trade between the two countries for the first nine months of this year totaled US$32.3 million, a 28.7 percent increase over the same period last year, quoted by the Cambodia Daily as saying.

Ms. Borovik added that Cambodian exports to Russia make up 60 percent of trade between the two countries, with garments, agricultural products and seafood being the largest exported products.

In 2008, investment totaled US$600 million with businesses such as the Beeline mobile phone, said she.

“With the economic crisis this year, people are afraid to invest abroad especially if we don’t know the situation in our own country,” Ms. Borovik said.