Abstract
Economic growth in Cambodia came to an abrupt halt in 1997 as the domestic political crisis and the external financial crisis took their toll. However, Cambodia has been comparatively mildly affected by the Asian crisis and, provided that political stability can be achieved, there are good chances that the economic decline in 1997 will become little more than a parenthesis. A more fundamental development challenge facing the country is the very rapid increase in the labour force as the large cohorts born in the early 1980s enter the labour market. A major weakness in the economic development to date has been its narrow base. It has largely been attributed to growth in the urban industrial and service sectors, while the performance of agriculture has been rather lacklustre. The twin goals of productive employment generation and poverty alleviation will require much more dynamic development of agriculture and of the rural economy as a whole to succeed. Access to productive assets - i.e. land, physical and human capital - and insecurity arising from the absence of the rule of law, are identified as the factors with the strongest bearing on poverty.
Contents
(excluding appendices and bibliographies)
Chapter One - An overview of recent economic performance
Real sector development
Prices and foreign exchange rates
Monetary and financial sector development
Public finances
External transactions
Labour markets
Sectoral issues
Agricultural production
Chapter Two - The impacts of the internal and external crises
The impacts on consumer prices and spending
Impacts on some enterprises
Pressures on the livelihood of vulnerable workers
Summary of findings
Chapter Three - The poverty profile
Background
Income distribution and poverty
Measurements of poverty
Who are the poor in Cambodia?
International poverty comparisons
Changes in poverty
A note on the quality of the data
Chapter Four - Poverty alleviation and rural development
The demographic challenge
Lack of productive assets
Insecurity, lack of rule of law and protection of property rights
Targeted anti-poverty programmes
Chapter Five - Conclusions